Keychain File Locations on macOS

Mac Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟Keychain File Locations on macOS

This section provides a tutorial example on how to find Keychain file locations on macOS computers.

Keychain is a great tool to manage certificates on Mac computers. Normally you don't need to know those certificates are stored and where they are stored.

Most PKI-based applications designed to run on Mac computers knows how to access certificate managed by Keychain. Safari Web browser is a good example.

If you really want to know where Keychain files are stored on your Mac computer, here some guidelines to help you finding them:

1. Certificates in "login" Keychain - login.keychain-db stored in ~/Library/Keychains/ in your home directory.

herong$ sudo ls -l ~/Library/Keychains/

drwx------  11 herong  staff     374  1EE865BD-E71B-57E4-8E7D-BD7119D2B5BB
-rw-r--r--   1 herong  staff   30272  Test.keychain-db
-rw-r--r--@  1 herong  staff  499876  login.keychain-db
-rw-r--r--   1 herong  staff  354188  login.keychain-db.sb-9e03cdb4-HH8NvQ
-rw-------   1 herong  staff  154336  metadata.keychain-db

2. Certificate in "System" Keychain - System.keychain stored in the /Library/Keychains/ directory.

herong$ sudo ls -l /Library/Keychains

-r--r--r--@ 1 root  wheel      0  .fl043D1EDD
-r--r--r--  1 root  wheel      0  .fl947E1BDB
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  88664  System.keychain
-rw-r--r--@ 1 root  wheel  65944  apsd.keychain

3. Certificate in "System Roots" Keychain - SystemRootCertificates.keychain stored in the /System/Library/Keychains/ directory.

herong$ sudo ls -l /System/Library/Keychains/

-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel    6814  EVRoots.plist
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  385940  SystemRootCertificates.keychain
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   91756  SystemTrustSettings.plist
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  282984  X509Anchors

However, some PKI-based applications are designed to run on the Linux system that supports the Mac computer. They do not use certificates that are managed by keychain. See the next tutorial for examples.