Import and Export Usernames and Passwords on the Mac

0:02
In this video, we’re going to look at how we can import and export usernames and passwords on the Mac. Now, you can only do this on the Mac, you cannot do this on the iPad and iPhone. So let’s see how we do this on the Mac. Now in order to do this, what we need to do is go to our System Preferences, and we go to our passwords. This does not work on older versions of Mac OS, I’m using Mac OS, Monterey.

0:27
So now what I do is I go over to my Apple Menu, and then we go over to our System Preferences. And our System Preferences, we have a preference pane for passwords. When I select this, I enter in my password. And now I can look at all of my usernames and passwords. Nothing new here. We can also do this through Safari. But what we now have introduced in later versions of Mac OS is the ability to import and export passwords. When I export them out, it exports it out as a comma separated value file, so you can open it up and Numbers or Excel.

1:05
And when you import them, it imports a CSV file that same type of file. So if you have usernames and passwords in an Excel spreadsheet or a number spreadsheet, you could import them in. So let’s go ahead and do that and see how this all works. I’m just going to export one username and password. So I type in here demo site. And when I have it selected here, you’re going to see I have a new option here, what I can do is export the selected password, that’s what I want to do, I don’t want to export all of them, but I could, when I select this, I do have to confirm it. So let’s go ahead and confirm it. I want to save this on my desktop, I click on save, I do have to use my password to confirm. And now we can see we have my password here. And if I were to do a quick look on it, you’re gonna see that it is just a simple spreadsheet, we have our title, we also have the URL, I have the username, and then I also have the password and notes.

2:07
Now if I want to import this in, what I do is I go back over to the little icon down here. And then we go to Import. I select it, I want to import it in I choose the file, we’re going to go with my password, so one that I just exported out. I click on import. I use the password to confirm my computer password to confirm it. And then it asks me if I want to delete the original file, the file that is on my desktop. Now when I click on Delete here, what it does is it deletes it immediately it does not put it into the trash, it deletes it immediately. So you’re not going to be able to recover.

2:49
So if you want to keep that file, make sure that you click on not now. But if you are done with it, I would recommend that you delete it. Otherwise, it’s going to be sitting on your computer and somebody could read it. You don’t want to have your passwords just sitting around. So I’m going to click on Delete here, we can see it is no longer there. And if I were to open up my trash, it would not be in my trash. It is deleted. Also, the new username and password would be in my passwords here. So that’s how we can import and export usernames and passwords on the Mac.

3:23
We can only do this on the Mac, we can’t do this on the iPad and the iPhone. The way that we do this is we go to where all of our passwords are, we can export all of our passwords or if we select a few of the passwords, usernames and passwords, we can just export those the ones that we have selected, it does export them out as a comma separated value file, which means that you could put this into put that file into Numbers or Excel. To import usernames and password it has to be in that same type of file a comma separated value file. When you import usernames and passwords, the Mac will ask you if you want to delete that original file once it has imported those in there. That is for your own security. So you do not have a file with all of your usernames and passwords sitting on your computer. It deletes it immediately. So that’s how we import and export usernames and passwords on the Mac.