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Importing passwords into macOS Passwords.app

I’ve been using Selznick Scientific Software’s PasswordWallet for a couple of decades. (Seriously, it has been that long. The oldest entry in my wallet is for the ACM Digital Library, and it was created in 2001.)

However, in the last couple of macOS updates, PasswordWallet has developed a few annoying problems, and I’ve found myself relying on Apple’s keychain instead. With the release of macOS Sequoia’s Passwords.app, it is time to say goodbye to my beloved PasswordWallet.

On macOS (only), Passwords.app allows you to import data, but what the new app expects, and what PasswordWallet exports, aren’t compatible. Sadly, the user guide for Passwords.app doesn’t give any useful information about importing. (But it can help you find the Import menu item, if you’re unable to do that. 🙄)

Before you begin, use PasswordWallet’s local sync function to merge all copies of your wallet (such as from your iPhone) with the wallet on your Mac. Make a note of how many total entries you have. (Mine has nearly 1000.) Then, make sure PasswordWallet’s search field is clear and use the export command to save a text file of all your entries. Then do the following:

  1. Open the exported file in BBedit and change all the tab characters to commas.
  2. Save the file with a .csv extension, which is what Passwords.app requires.
  3. Import the csv file into Numbers for further manipulation.
  4. Only the first five columns are needed, so use Merge Cell to move any information from columns six and beyond into the fifth column. (This will become the Notes field in Passwords.app)
  5. Delete columns six and beyond.
  6. Add a Header Row that names each column as follows: Title, URL, Username, Password, and Notes.
  7. Save the .cvs file.
  8. In Passwords.app, use the Import function to open the cvs file. (Importing takes a surprisingly long time. Be patient.)
  9. When the import finishes, you’ll see a list of entries that were skipped. In my case, about 20% were not imported because they were duplicates of what I already had in Passwords.app (based on the item’s URL). You may want to compare each of these with what you have in PasswordWallet and manually re-enter any Notes that you want to retain.
  10. As a sanity-check, compare the reported number of entries imported with the total entries that were in your PasswordWallet.

To finish up, I recommend using PasswordWallet to save a backup file of its data, for safekeeping. It will be encrypted and require PasswordWallet to open, should you need it. You can also save your import files, but as they are in plain text, I strongly suggest doing so using an encrypted archive or disk image. In any case, be sure to securely delete your import files so they can’t be recovered. (Another point that the Help book fails to mention.)

I would appreciate it if there were a way to assign imported entries to a group, but I couldn’t figure out a way to do that. It might be possible by adding columns to the spreadsheet, but doing so is left as an exercise for the reader.

Good luck!


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