Your best friend for file transfer

Fetch application logoFetch
Fetch Icon Fetch Help > Using Fetch > Moving keychains and passwords to another Macintosh

When you are upgrading to a new Macintosh, or if you use multiple Macintosh computers, you may want the same Fetch shortcuts and their passwords on each computer.

Moving your shortcuts is fairly straightforward. However, to provide the best security, Fetch stores its passwords separate from the shortcuts file; passwords are stored in the Mac OS X keychain. Unfortunately, this means when you move your shortcuts file from one Macintosh to another, all the information about your shortcuts except the passwords is moved; and moving keychains from one Macintosh to the other is not as straightforward as moving the shortcuts.

The simplest solution, especially if you just have a few passwords, is to re-enter your passwords on the new Macintosh (where they will be saved in that Macintosh's keychain). See the Fetch Password FAQ help topic for information about how to reveal a shortcut's password using the Keychain Access application.

Otherwise, there are a few options for moving keychain information between two Macintosh computers:

  • If you are a MobileMe (.Mac) subscriber, you can use MobileMe (.Mac) syncing to sync the two keychains, which will copy passwords that are not in one keychain to the other. This is the best option if it is available to you.
  • The Mac OS X Migration Assistant will move keychain files between computers, although usually the Migration Assistant is most useful if you have not moved your files to the other Macintosh yet.
  • Or you can follow the instructions below to move your keychain from one Macintosh to another, and then move the passwords from one keychain to another. Note that you will need to know your login (or administrator) password from the old Macintosh in order to move the rest of your passwords.

To move your keychain from one Macintosh to another and then move the passwords from one keychain to another (these instructions only apply to Mac OS X 10.4 or later):

  1. Locate your keychain file on your old Macintosh. One way to do this is to choose Go > Home in the Finder of the old Macintosh, double-click on the Library folder, and then double-click on the Keychains folder. You should see a file named login.keychain inside that folder.
  2. Duplicate or make a copy of the keychain file.
  3. Rename the duplicate (or copy) of the old keychain file to something like "old Mac.keychain" — be sure the name of the file still ends in ".keychain".
  4. Copy the old keychain to the new Macintosh.
  5. Put the old keychain in the Keychains folder on the new Macintosh. To find the Keychains folder, choose Go > Home in the Finder, double-click on the Library folder, and then double-click on the Keychains folder.
  6. Open the Keychain Access application, which is in the Utilities folder inside your Applications folder.
  7. Choose Edit > Keychain List.
  8. Click the Plus (+) button.
  9. Locate the old keychain file, select it, and click the Open button.
  10. Click OK to close the Keychain List window.
  11. In the list of keychains on the left, select the keychain from the old Macintosh.
  12. Find a password you want to move to your new Macintosh computer's keychain. (The passwords are usually listed by the name of the server they are for; Fetch passwords will have a kind of "Fetch password" or "Internet password.")
  13. Drag it to the "login" keychain entry in the keychain list on the left. The first time you move a Fetch password, you will be prompted to enter a password twice: one to unlock the old keychain, and one to give permission to modify the keychain item — both times, you should enter the login or adminstrator password from the old Macintosh. For subsequent Fetch passwords, you will only be asked to enter your old login password once.
  14. Repeat steps 12-13 until all your passwords have been relocated in the new keychain.

Now when you use the shortcuts you copied to the new Macintosh, your password should automatically be retrieved from the keychain.

If you are upgrading from a previous version of Fetch on the same computer, you do not need to import your old shortcuts and passwords. Fetch will do that automatically.

Related topics: