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Brian Lazzara Author

Level 6

10,107 points

Export Items tool is greyed out in Keychain Access app

Hi, this post is actually an extension of an older closed discussion thread referenced here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6770639

I am trying desperately to export my iCloud Keychain, so that I can import it into another iMac that I have. Yet, I cannot get the function of Export Items to not be dimmed or greyed-out. In fact, it seems I can't export anything from iCloud in any category, no Certificates, no Key, and no Passwords, or even individually selected passwords.

The reason I am trying to do this is there a problem with iCloud Keychain on a new iMac that I migrated to. (Noted in a different discussion thread) So no, I don't what use migration assistant or rely on iCloud to populate the keychain, because I've already done that and it failed. That's the source of the problem and what i'm trying to fix.

There hasn't been any further posts on the above linked topic since three years ago. And one of the former posters seems quite angry about the same thing, that the export tool seems to be permanently greyed and unusable. I agree. I have 1718 keychain items that I am trying to export from one apple computer to another. It should be so easy. Why is this such a problem?

iMac 27″, macOS 10.15

Posted on May 30, 2020 1:16 PM

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Brian Lazzara Author

Level 6

10,107 points

Posted on May 30, 2020 3:12 PM

So i HAVE tried that, and it didn't work. While it the option key modifies or opens more menu items in other apps, including System Preferences, it doesn't seem to help or do anything in Keychain Access unfortunately. I know from another discussion i googled, I could potentially use option key to click and drag one of the database files from the keychain folder in my system Library. But i'm a little nervous to do that just yet, since I don't know exactly which one is in charge of my iCloud Keychain. There's a few in there and they're all not very clearly named. I think login.keychain is for my system and user startup. But maybe metadata.keychain is it, but there's a few versions of those too…

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Export Items tool is greyed out in Keychain Access app

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