Membranophonist’s Ramblings

Keychain Access has some problems.

Creating Password Items

The Add button on the dialog to add a new login/password combo doesn’t enable immediately after using the random password generator.

1. Select “New Password Item…” from the File menu.
2. Type in a web site address in the Item Name field.
3. Type a name in the Account Name field.
4. Click the key icon to the right of the Password field.
5. Generate and accept a password by closing the Password Assistant.
6. Notice that the Add button has not validated.

Deleting and replacing a single letter from one of the first two fields enables the Add button.

That this bug was missed is somewhat understandable given that most login/password combos are created by the user’s browser rather than directly in Keychain Access, but I frequently use the random password generator while creating accounts for web services and doubt that I’m the only one.

Radar bug #4407757

Other Minor Issues

1. The “No” button on this dialog should be changed to “Don’t Save”
2. The selection dialog to grant access permissions to login/password combos to applications doesn’t allow multiple applications to be selected using the Command and/or Shift key, meaning you have to repeat the steps required to add an application for each one.
3. The application selection confirmation button should read Choose rather than Open.
4. Unprotected keychain items such as site URLs and certificate owners’ names should be indexed by Spotlight.