Maximum length of passwords

I have both a mini & a MacBook Pro. I don't know how I screwed them up, but both of them are nagging me for iCloud & Keychain passwords.

I plan to nuke the hard drive on each one & do a clean install of Yosemite.

This gives me an opportunity to create complex passwords for logon, iCloud & Keychain.

So, my main question is; is there a maximum length for passwords that OS X will accept? You know, 16 or 32 or 256 characters or whatever. I suppose that ALL printable characters are permitted, right? Since Apple is sold all over the world, I suppose that Greek, Russian, Hebrew, etc. characters are also permitted, right? Speaking of Keyboard Viewer, my laptop shows only English but my mini keyboard shows English &, I think, German. How do I get additional keyboards to show up in Keyboard Viewer?

Apple requires a password length of at least 8 characters (with other requirements):

Security and your Apple ID

If you want to create a really long password (that you're almost never going to remember unless it is written down)...I would say experiment. If you want a 32 character password...try a 32 character password...and see if it's accepted.

Or if you REALLY want to experiment...try a 256 character password. If it's accepted (great for you if you really want a password this long). If it's rejected...try something shorter.

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

Apple requires a password length of at least 8 characters (with other requirements):

Security and your Apple ID

If you want to create a really long password (that you're almost never going to remember unless it is written down)...I would say experiment. If you want a 32 character password...try a 32 character password...and see if it's accepted.

Or if you REALLY want to experiment...try a 256 character password. If it's accepted (great for you if you really want a password this long). If it's rejected...try something shorter.

- Nick

Click to expand...

I just found out the maximum password length! Googling & Binging didn't help.
I went to System Preferences & clicked on Users & clicked on Password Assistant. There is a slider for setting the password length. I slid it all of the way to the right & saw the number 31. So, I found the answer to my question. The maximum password length is 31 characters! So, I'll experiment.
Alrighty, then. I'd say that this concludes this thread for me. Thanks for your help.