I changed my Apple ID password yesterday, it worked (with one exception)

[michelangelo]

Hello ! This is a follow-up post to my 2017-03-26 post labeled: "I want to change my AppleID password and want to do it well"

I changed my Apple ID password yesterday, it worked (with one exception). My Apple TV is still disconnected. The rest works. It was not easy (to me).

I created a new 14-digits (beware! spacebar is not a digit accepted by Apple) Apple ID password which is intended not to be too hard to input from my iPhone. I accepted the prospect that in most instances, I would need to input it by memory with my numb fingers, including on my iPhone. I wrote it down on paper because I do not trust any advice to the contrary.

I decided that from now on, my Mac login password (which I use on many logins on my two Macs) would remain unchanged, hence different from my new Apple ID password. Before, they were in sync, at least on my Macbook Pro.

For prudence and efficiency sake, I decided first to go to to boss rather than to its minions, hence <https://appleid.apple.com/>, which I had itemised in 1Password.

List of other places to visit, then, to change my password there: MacBook Pro System Preferences, iMac, iPhone iCloud preferences, iPad, Apple TV preferences; Apple Support Communities <https://discussions.apple.com/welcome>.

As written earlier, using 1Password, I first went to <https://appleid.apple.com/>, which I had itemised in 1Password. After verifying and taking notes of everything there and carefully noting down my future new Apple ID password, I changed my Apple ID password but refused to enable two-factors authentication in an attempt to preserve my Apple TV 1st generation login and to minimise disturbing alerts. This triggered three alerts on my Mac (only three ) from Keychain, 1Password and the Mac itself (prefs > icloud).

• On an alert, I first inputted my Prefs > iCloud password and then allowed keychain and 1Password to take note of my new Apple ID password.
• I verified Keychain Login pswd (Utilities > Keychain Access.app > Edit > Change password for keychain login). Its password had changed automatically to the new Apple ID password. This is because, I believe, it is in sync with my account password on my MacBook Pro and my account password on my MacBook Pro is in sync with my Apple ID.
• I verified (system prefs > Users and groups) the status of my account password on my MacBook Pro. It had changed automatically to the new Apple ID because I had a long time ago set it to be in sync with my Apple ID. I changed it back to my earlier password.
• This changed also my Keychain Login pswd back to where it was before.
• On my iMac, on an alert, I reconnected to iCloud with the new Apple ID password and verified all accounts passwords. None had been in sync with my Apple ID and none had changed. I set them all to be recoverable with my Apple ID.
• I verified Keychain Login pswd (Utilities > Keychain Access.app > Edit > Change password for keychain login). It had remained faithful to the respective account password.
• The mac.com address assigned to my Apple ID continued to work. I believe its password was changed as well to carry on matching my Apple ID password in Apple Mail. I did not verify.
• On my iPad and iPhone, on an alert, I reconnected to iCloud with the new Apple ID password.
• I tried re-connecting my Apple TV 1st generation and received a confusing error message stating I had attempted too many times to connect with a wrong password. So, my Apple TV does not connect any more. Correcting that will be hard work, which I reserved for some time in the future.
• That's all folks !

A word of advice to casual users. You cannot trust Keychain to remember for you (1) your keychain password, (2) your iCloud keychain security code (which I needed to construct from scratch), (3) your mac account password, (4) your iPhone and iPad security codes, (5) your SIM card PIN code, (6) your Apple ID password (except for internet access). It is useful to act as if what applies to Keychain mostly applies also to a password manager.

I hope this post can be useful to some of us.

 

[chscag]

Thanks for the follow up and information. We try to warn folks about changing their Apple ID and passwords especially if they choose to use 2FA. Nowadays we have so many devices and other gadgets that we need to keep a password for that it's sometimes overwhelming. In my personal situation I also have to make sure that the devices my wife uses are protected. She does not have the knowledge or patience to keep up with all of it. She just wants everything to work. I guess we all want that though. Life is getting more complicated isn't it? ;D

 

[michelangelo]

I am afraid I am not so successful with my wife, who has an extremely insecure set-up.

UPDATE. I realised today that CCC sends automated emails, BUT needs my current password to do that. I therefore did today the correction in CCC in my MacBook Pro. Will also do it in mi iMac, and do the same for Drive DX. Changing the Apple ID has a lot of unforseen consequences.