Mac OS X is a hugely powerful beast and most of us rarely do more than scratch the surface. In an attempt to force myself to dig deeper under the hood, and help you get more from OS X, I thought it would be fun every now and again to take a look at some of its most under-used features.

Today it’s the turn of Keychain Access, a handy little app that lives in the Utilities folder inside Applications. Keychain Access is a management tool for Keychain, Mac OS X’s repository for passwords, permissions and security information. It stores the security information you need to open encrypted disk images and to log on to email servers, Web servers and FTP servers. And it allows you to store your security information and protect it using the Triple Digital Encryption Standard (3DES).

There are two main reasons for using Keychain Access; to access passwords that you’ve forgotten and to store other security inofrmation such as PINs and credit card numbers.

To view a password you’ve forgotten, launch Keychain Access by navigating to the Utilities folder (hint: Command-Shift-U in the Finder will take you there) and double-clicking on its icon. In the main window you’ll see a list of items for which your Keychain has stored passwords. Find the item whose password you’ve forgotten, either by scrolling through the list or searching for it in the search box on the top right of the window. Double-click the item and check the Show Password box in the dialog that opens. You’ll then be prompted to enter your Keychain password (it’s the same as your log in password). And the password will be displayed.

To add an item such as a credit card number, go to the File menu and select New Secure Note Item or New Password Item.

To control whether your Keychain unlocks when you log in or whether it locks when your Mac sleeps and to select if it synchronises with your .mac account, go to Preferences and select the First Aid tab. Check or uncheck the appropriate boxes.

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