Set and Retrieve Passwords From Your Systems Password Manager With The keyring Python Module

June 2021

NOTE: See also this post:

/posts/storing-local-environmental-variables-securely-in-password-managers-instead-of-plaintext-env-files--20eonil1bcsz][Storing Local Environmental Variables Securely In Password Managers Instead Of Plaintext env Files

#TL;DR

Set passwords form the command line with:

(NOTE: confirmed in march 2022 that PASSWORD_NAME USER_NAME is the proper order)

python3 -m keyring set PASSWORD_NAME USER_NAME

Running that will ask you to put in the password.

Then, retrieve them in scripts with:

import keyring 

keyring.get_password(PASSWORD_NAME, USERNAME)

NOTE: Confirmed that this is the order the parameters need to be in to get keys that were added from inside Keychain Access itself

# Details

You can store passwords in your system's credential locker (e.g. Keychain Access on macOs and ... on Windows and ... on Linux) with the keyring Python module.

Installation

Install it with either pip3 or pip depending on your configuration. E.g.

pip3 install keyring

# Setting Passwords From Scripts

You can set your passwords in a script with:

import keyring

keyring.set_password("SERVICE", "USERNAME", "PASSWORD")

# Setting Passwords From The Command Line

You can set passwords directly from the command line with:

python3 -m keyring set SERVICE USERNAME

You'll be prompted to enter your password from there

# Retrieving Passwords

And retrieve them with:

import keyring 

keyring.get_password("SERVICE", "PASSWORD")

# Notes

- As far as I can tell "SERVICE" is just for grouping. I simply use my username. - I used to add dates to my passwords, but I stopped doing that. (This is more a reminder to myself that to anyone else)

Note: if you put something directly in Keychain Access, the values you put in for name and account are used in a backwards order from what you'd expect. i.e.

keyring.get_password(NAME, ACCOUNT)

TODO: Look at the below for setting them to see how it goes in and if it's reversed or not

TODO: Add a python command line version of using the module to add passwords

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