How can I import entries from the Mac OS X keychain?

richard2

I've just installed the trial version of 1Password. I want to import my passwords and secure notes from the Mac OS X keychain, but I can't see any way to do this. Am I missing something?



I'm using Mac OS X 10.7.1, 1Password 3.8.1, and Safari 5.1.

Ben

Hi richard2,



Welcome to the forums. I apologize for the inconvenience but we don't yet have an importer for the OS X keychain on Lion.



Ben

sil

Do you have an idea of the time for the importer? It is kind of useless to try to switch to 1P without being able to import the OSX keychain



Thanks,

s

[Deleted User]

Sil,



At the moment, no, the old import mechanism relied on our old extension to allow you to import web passwords from the OS X Keychain, with this gone and the technology behind it no longer supported fully by Safari 5.1 we'll have to look into some alternatives.



The main problem so far is that anything we've tried will prompt you to accept every item, one at a time, for import. When you're looking at more than say 10 items, this is going to become annoying.



This is on our list of features to add, but I just can't promise when this may be available.

sil

Thanks Stu,



In the end I've solved the issue moving my Lion OSX keychain to a 10.5 and then import everything using the 3.5 importer.



s

Ben

Great! I'm glad to hear you were able to find a solution that works for you. Thanks for the update. <img src='http://forum.agilebits.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

ulli

Just downloaded 1Password, but I am afraid it is quite useless to me if I cannot import the OSX Keychain.

khad

I'm sorry to hear that, ulli. We are looking at ways to make this possible in the new extension, but I don't have a time frame for anything right now.



I now it may not be much consolation, but when I made the switch long ago, I decided to intentionally forego the importer since i knew I had a bunch of old Logins that I didn't want cluttering up 1Password. I used 1Password in tandem with my browser's password manager and 1Password saved the new Logins as I went along. It took a bit longer, but there was less cleanup to do that way. The effort I put in over time was essentially zero since 1Password's autosave just did its thing while I browsed.



I'm sorry I don't have a better answer right now, but this is definitely on our radar.

CyberFOX

Greetings,

I was able to export my keychain using:



[CODE]security dump-keychain -d login.keychain > keychain_logins.txt[/CODE]



I had to click like...300 times, and I understand that's not the user experience you want in YOUR tool, but I now have a file with all my logins...although it's in no useful format. <img src='http://forum.agilebits.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':(' /> I'm going to hate writing a filter to process it into a CSV format, if that's what I have to do...



Any chance you folks have written that filter already?



-- Morgan

CyberFOX

Greetings,

I suppose I should give you more time, but I was bored, and wrote my own converter...



You can get it from here: [url="https://gist.github.com/1224792"]https://gist.github.com/1224792[/url]



The instructions are in the top of the file, and I'll copy them here...



[b]Usage ([i]in Terminal[/i])[/b]:[CODE]

security dump-keychain -d login.keychain > keychain_logins.txt

# Lots of clicking 'Always Allow', or just 'Allow', until it's done...

curl -O https://raw.github.com/gist/1224792/06fff24412311714ad6534ab700a7d603c0a56c9/keychain.rb

chmod a+x ./keychain.rb

./keychain.rb keychain_logins.txt | sort > logins.csv

[/CODE]

Then import logins.csv in 1Password using the 'CSV or Delimited Text' importer, specifying the format:

[CODE]

Title, URL/Location, Username, Password

[/CODE]

[i]Remember to check 'Fields are quoted', and the Delimiter character of 'Comma'.[/i]



I give [b]NO WARRANTY[/b] that this'll work for anyone else. It worked for me, but your passwords may contain characters which fubar it, or my ruby version is off from yours, or any of a myriad of other issues could cause this to fail for you.



Still, if it helps anybody with this common problem, it's worth putting out there. Just remember that the first command (security dump-keychain...) is going to prompt you a few hundred times. :-/



I wish there was a better way, but this is an adequate workaround for me for now.



-- Morgan Schweers, Cyber[b]FOX[/b]!

brenty

That is awesome, Morgan! Thank you for sharing that! <img src='http://forum.agilebits.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />



Whether coming from the Mac OS X Keychain, another application, or a 'home-grown' solution, getting everything set up the way you want it in 1Password can be a daunting task at first. While importing everything wholesale can be quicker when possible, I have found that a more pragmatic approach is often more rewarding.



Importing Keychain data will get you your login credentials, but 1Password actually saves a lot more information about the form that it uses to know how to fill it later when you save a Login item using the 1Password extension. While I initially tried importing my data, I ended up adding it all a little bit at a time by saving new Login items (and copy/pasting my saved credentials into the login forms during the process), and that way my Login items actually worked much better. <img src='http://forum.agilebits.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />