Some items appear in keychain but not passwords

Hi. I enter a password using the security command at the command line. It appears in the keychain access app, but not in the passwords app. I don't understand why.

rickhedin@Ricks-MacBook-Pro zalando % security add-generic-password -U -s "birds" -a "cats" -w "dogs"
rickhedin@Ricks-MacBook-Pro zalando % 
rickhedin@Ricks-MacBook-Pro zalando % security find-generic-password -s "birds" -wa "cats"      
dogs
rickhedin@Ricks-MacBook-Pro zalando % 

I'm told the two apps are two views of the same data, so I guess some filter must be being applied?

Answered by DTS Engineer in 866932022
I don't understand why.

Yeah, that’s confusing. macOS has two keychain implementations, the file-based keychain and the data protection keychain. See TN3137 On Mac keychain APIs and implementations for more about this.

The security tool puts the password into the file-based keychain. In Keychain Access that shows up in login. The Passwords app is centred around the data protection keychain, and hence doesn’t see it.

There is no command-line tool access to the data protection keychain.

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

Accepted Answer
I don't understand why.

Yeah, that’s confusing. macOS has two keychain implementations, the file-based keychain and the data protection keychain. See TN3137 On Mac keychain APIs and implementations for more about this.

The security tool puts the password into the file-based keychain. In Keychain Access that shows up in login. The Passwords app is centred around the data protection keychain, and hence doesn’t see it.

There is no command-line tool access to the data protection keychain.

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

Some items appear in keychain but not passwords
 
 
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