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From time to time my company requires me to change my password. We are mostly a PC based organization and everything revolves around Windows logon.

There are a few Mac users that are on their own. Macs can log in to various shared network drives, mail servers and LAN applications. But all of this just uses keychain.

Everytime I'm required to change my password, updating everything on the Mac is a nightmare. There are always some hidden processes that retain older passwords and attempt to use them, resulting in corporate IT locking my account.

I'm at a loss. Changing every entry in keychain still leaves old passwords somewhere and I don't know how to completely flush them out. I tried WireShark but couldn't find anything.

What do people do about this to avoid being locked out?

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  • Welcome to Ask Different. What does it look like when you save your passwords? What apps are running? Are you deleting your keychain entries before changing the password?
    – bmike
    Jan 5, 2016 at 18:09
  • It is possible to bind a Mac to Active Directory, the tools are built into the OS but well hidden. I would think that if your Mac is bound to AD then you would be prompted to change your password and all associated passwords would be changed as well. Not having done this myself I am mentioning it as a subject to look into, hence it being a comment, not an answer. Jan 5, 2016 at 18:52

2 Answers 2

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I've moved most of my password storage to 1Password app so that I don't need to mind the keychain when it makes more than one copy of a password. the benefit of that is I can have my passwords synced to iOS (and other OS) as well as save them periodically to a USB drive for disaster recovery.

Keychain doesn't do any of these as well as a tool made for managing passwords. As a bonus, I end up making much more secure passwords programmatically rather than typing them by hand.

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  • Does 1Password app authenticates automatically ? Say while connecting to file share Or Outlook ? If it doesn't, then not saving passwords in Keychain might solve account lockout issue but you know how much everyone loves to check that remember my password option.
    – clhy
    Jan 5, 2016 at 18:31
  • It has browser integration and a menu bar item so that you can copy/paste the password as needed. It's awesome for filling out web forms / addresses. It doesn't integrate with Finder seamlessly and probably doesn't work in outlook either other than if you copy/paste the password. @The_IT_Guy_You_Don't_Like
    – bmike
    Jan 5, 2016 at 18:36
  • @bmike I've bought 1Password too and can confirm it's a relief (using it on 3 platforms, mac, windows and ios)
    – Rob
    Jan 5, 2016 at 18:39
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I deleted all entries and then the keychain itself. This worked.

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