How Do I Get Safari to Use 1Password Instead of Keychain?
On returning to the Tech 911, a weekly column with tips Lifehacker on technology . This week we answer a question from a reader who gets annoyed when his browser prompts him to save passwords for a service he doesn’t want to use. Does it look like you? Read more.
Lifehacker reader John writes:
“I read your article on 1Password and Watchtower and I was wondering if you know how to sync 1Password with Keychain? I have 1Password on my Mac, iPhone, iPad, and at work on my Windows PC. It seems that when I enter credentials on a website in Safari, it prompts me to store the credentials in Keychain or 1Password, choosing seemingly randomly, rather than both. As a result, I often need a password, which is not easy for me to get, because it is in Keychain, not 1Password. ”
Ah, I know the problem well – having your usernames and passwords all over the place makes it difficult to remember which service you use to store which passwords.
My first advice is to ditch the keychain as a bad habit. I don’t mind, but if you already have 1Password, you should just pretend the Keychain doesn’t exist. There is no need to share passwords between the two services because this will lead to a lot of the confusion you are currently experiencing.
If I were you, I would start by checking out this import utility , which I hope will help you migrate your Mac Keychain passwords to 1Password without any problems. You can also do things manually. Open Keychain Access (by typing it into Spotlight) and view your “login” and “iCloud” keychains to see what you’ve saved. Double-click the entries to find your usernames and logins, make a new entry in 1Password, and try again. It may take a while if you have a lot of logins, but it’s worth it.
From there, open Safari, launch its preferences and click the AutoFill tab. Disable all options, which will cause Safari to stop displaying keychain hints. (Alternatively, you can also uncheck the box in the Passwords tab.)
I’m assuming you’re using it, but just in case, make sure you’ve also installed 1Password 7 for your Mac and enabled the extension in Safari (via the Extensions tab in Preferences). Thus, 1Password, not Safari, will prompt you to save passwords on sites.
To be honest, I find 1Password a little finicky to use in Safari (maybe it’s just me). You can also switch completely to another browser like Chrome or Firefox , which can make saving your password with 1Password easier (compared to Keychain).