[ale] OT: OS X mail keyring password

[Brian Pitts]

Christopher Fowler wrote:
> A friend has lost the password to the keyring where he has stored his
> IMAP passwords.
> 
> The system keeps prompting for the password to the "login" keyring.
> Since he does not know it he can not store any more passwords there and
> the messages are annoying.  I can login and get su access.  Is there a
> file I can delete that will get him back to square one?
> 

I'd written a linux reply before I realized OS X was in the title. Apple 
calls it the keychain. The password to unlock the login keychain should 
be the same as the password to log in to the account. If this is no 
longer the case, you can restore this behavior by starting the program 
Keychain Access and running Keychain First Aid [0].

For comparison, in GNOME you can do this with seahorse-preferences or 
just start fresh by deleting ~/.gnome2/keyrings/login.keyring

-Brian

[0] http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh1777.html