OS X Keychain Password Prompts

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We ran in to this the other day, and this is what worked for us…

A few users were being constantly prompted with “OS X wants to use the “Local Items” keychain” requiring them to enter their keychain password.  This created an issue as the password being prompted for was associated with the original user of the computer.  We did not have access to that user as the computers were part of a donation.  The users were being prompted, both from their desktop, and while attempting to perform tasks such as printing or opening a program.  While canceling the prompts would often allow the user to complete their task, they would need to select “Cancel” several times which resulted in tasks taking longer and leaving users feeling as though they should not use their computer until it was looked at by an IT technician.

In this situation, we were able to remove the prompts by performing the following steps:

  1. In Finder, select Go To Folder
  2. Type the following at the prompt: ~/Library/Keychains/
  3. Look for a folder with a name similar to: A8F5E7B8-CEC1-4479-A7DF-F23CB076CB
    1. Note: Your folder will have a slightly different name as this folder is created by the system and is, therefore, different on each computer
  4. Move this folder to the trash
  5. Immediately click on the Apple symbol located at the top left of desktop, and select Restart…

After the restart, feel free to look in the same folder location listed above.  You should find a new folder created with a name slightly different than the one we removed.  This folder does not need to be deleted as it is a non-corrupt version of the folder which we moved to the trash previously and should resolve the continuous “OS X wants to use the “Local Items” keychain” prompts showing up.

If you have any further questions, please leave them in the comments or feel free to call Canopy IT Solutions for a free consultation .