Why can't my Keychain.app settings work for both Safari and Camino?

September 19, 2006 2:29 PM

I typically use Safari, and have my preferences set to store all of my passwords and user names in my Keychain.app. However when it starts acting up and giving me the spinning beach ball, I use Camino (v. 1.0.3.) When I try to log in to a website, it asks me for my user name and password - do I really have to fill in ALL those passwords and user names all over again? In other words, is there any way I can get Camino to access the passwords I saved using Safari?

Note: I have the "Allow saving in Keychain" and "Autofill passwords in web forms" boxes checked off in my Camino preferences.

posted by invisible ink to computers & internet (6 comments total)

As far as I know, there isn't a way that uses Keychain -- the two browsers seem to store things a little differently. But this claims to store passwords in a format that's accessible to both. Though check on how secure it is. I'm not familiar with it.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 2:42 PM on September 19, 2006

I've spent a lot of time looking and haven't yet found a solution to this problem, only I'm using Firefox instead of Camino.

I've used 1passwd and didn't really find it helpful. Maybe the paid version is different, but the free version requires you to manually sync passwords between browsers rather than syncing them automatically, which is generally more work than just retyping the passwords. Also, it re-inserts its icon into Firefox's toolbar after you delete it, which is just annoying.
posted by scottreynen at 3:02 PM on September 19, 2006

Firefox shouldn't interact with keychain at all - it's designed to be a cross-platform browser.
Camino should, as far as I know, because it's Mac specific, but I'll see if I can get any real answers. Maybe it uses keychain, but it's entries are held separately from Safari.
posted by NinjaTadpole at 3:26 PM on September 19, 2006

Check out the official bugzilla boards for problems with your Mozilla products. It's not very user-friendly, but it will give you info about fixes in progress.

The most likely looking bug I came up with was this one: "Make Camino use the same passwords in the Keychain as Safari"

If you go to the bottom of the page and read the last 6 months responses you'll see that, yes, both browsers use keychain, but the way they use it to store info is different.

Long story short: I think you need to start entering passwords again.
posted by NinjaTadpole at 3:39 PM on September 19, 2006

Yes, Camino cannot read Safari keychain entries. The bug report about this has existed since early 2003, and the fix date keeps getting pushed back.

I don't think there's an elegant solution until someone fixes Camino. Until then, Quicksilver might make the process of looking up keychain entries and pasting them into fields faster.
posted by disarray at 3:40 PM on September 19, 2006

@scottreynen

1Passwd keeps all passwords in OS X keychain and there is no need to sync them manually. All information is automatically available in all browsers.

See this video introduction from Don McAllister/ScreenCastsOnline.com for more information.
posted by roustem at 6:37 AM on February 18, 2007