4

First of all I don`t use iMessage. I log out of iMessage on my iDevices.

Today I took a look of my login Keychain Access and there were 366 items. All of them were iMessage Encryption Key and iMessage Signing Key.

iMessage Keys

I delete it, reboot my Mac and open Keychain Access again. In the reboot 8 keys (see screenshot) were create. Is this behaviour normal?

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
0

That's not abnormal. The system makes these and there's not much detail Keychain Assistant will show so it's a bit difficult to know which is used where.

Also, iMessages establishes a different key for each device you sign in to. The four key pairs you have could be one Mac, one iPad, one iPhone one and one watch.

I wouldn't worry about it - they are so small, deleting them seems more risky than the benefit of clearing out "old" ones.

Improve this answer
1

There is no problem in deleting those. Just close your messages app, remove all of those from keychain and reboot your mac. It will create a fresh pair for use.

PS: Log in and use it! It is one of the most secure IM services in the world, works seamlessly and allows you to send SMS from your mac.

Improve this answer
2
  • If you check the last aragraph of the question, the OP has already deleted these and they come back so they’re asking for an explanation why IMO.
    – bmike ♦
    Feb 10, 2018 at 18:38
  • Bug. It's fixed in the latest version of macOS, but when using older versions, cleaning house every now and then seems to be the only 'solution'.
    – Bachsau
    Dec 11, 2018 at 0:17

You must log in to answer this question.