Will keychain problems move to new Mac?

[Angela J]

I hope someone can help, my very old MacBook Pro (7 years) has lost my keychain info. , sorry but that is the only way I can describe it! I keep getting messages such as ’a keychain cannot be found to store.....’ it keeps asking for passwords, my photos app doesn’t work anymore, and my emails won’t update, what more can go wrong? I think this happened after the battery ran out and it crashed! Anyway I have ordered a new MacBook Pro. My question is, if I use migration assistant to transfer everything to the new machine, will the keychain problems be moved too, and will I still have this issue on the new one? Should I move everything manually? Thanks, hope someone knows the answer.

 

[IWT]

A warm welcome to Mac-Forums, Angela and thank you for your post.

As Keychain is an integral part of the Operating System (OS), it will transfer from Time Machine or a cloned backup to your new Mac. If I recall correctly, even using Migration Assistant to select what is transferred, I think Keychain is part of your settings and would transfer - might be wrong.

However you look at it, Keychain is broken. It's useless now and that's how it will stay. What I'd do is delete it and create a new Keychain. Obviously, this is a major hardship because you will, over time, have to train it to accept all your Passwords (PW) as you go about using them and creating new ones when required.

As you are about to get a new MacBookPro (congratulations) with a brand new Operating System (OS), now called macOS 11 Big Sur (BS), I'd be inclined to ditch the old Keychain now and start to let it learn your PWs as you input them, then transfer everything over to the new Mac.

Takes the pain out of manual transfer and re-downloading apps or other bits that might not come across.

Ian

 

[Angela J]

Ian, I am very grateful to you for your reply. I will do exactly as you suggest, seems the sensible option. Many thanks
Angela

 

[Slydude]

What OS are you running on the old Mac? Depending upon which version you have, some older programs may not work either. Support for 32-bit programs has been dropped from recent macOS versions.

 

[Angela J]

What OS are you running on the old Mac? Depending upon which version you have, some older programs may not work either. Support for 32-bit programs has been dropped from recent macOS versions.

Thanks, my Mac is running Catalina, no problem, I don't use any 32-bit programs

 

[IWT]

What OS are you running on the old Mac? Depending upon which version you have, some older programs may not work either. Support for 32-bit programs has been dropped from recent macOS versions.

Hi Sly

See above. I kind of went through this with her No offence, I promise

Ian

 

[Slydude]

Color me embarrassed. I missed that when I read the thread.