Change a vault’s password

Step by step

1. Lock the vault. Click Lock on its card (or Lock All). The card’s icon turns to a closed padlock and the Open and gear buttons disappear.
2. Right-click the vault (or Control-click, or two-finger click) and choose Change Password….
3. Fill in the sheet. “Current password” is pre-filled if it is saved in your Keychain (after Touch ID, if the vault requires it). Type the “New password (min. 6 characters)” and “Confirm new password”. Optionally edit the password hint.
4. Click Change Password. The button reads “Changing…” for a moment, then the sheet closes. The next unlock uses the new password.

What the sheet asks for

The sheet is titled “Change Password — New password for “Name””.

• Current password — required. Pre-filled from the Keychain when a password is saved for this vault.
• New password (min. 6 characters) and Confirm new password — must match. The strength meter rates the new password.
• Password hint (optional) — up to 120 characters, not the same as the new password. Shown at unlock. As everywhere in Doghouse: “Stored as plaintext with the vault file — anyone with the file can read the hint. Does not unlock, recover, or reset the password.”

If this vault’s password is saved, a line at the bottom confirms: “The saved password in your Keychain is updated automatically.”

The Keychain and Touch ID

When a password is saved for the vault, Doghouse replaces it with the new one as part of the change, so one-click unlocking and Touch ID keep working. Nothing is saved if no password was saved before; you can save it at the next unlock with “Remember password in my Keychain”.

For a vault that requires Touch ID, the Current password field is only pre-filled after you authenticate (the prompt reads “change the password of the vault “Name””). If you cancel, you can type the current password instead.

If Change Password… isn’t in the menu

• lock_open
  The vault is unlocked. The menu then shows Vault Settings… in place of the maintenance items. Click Lock and right-click again. If a file inside is still open, locking fails with “Could not lock vault — a file inside may still be open”; close it first.
• sync
  “Lock “Name” first, then change its password.” The vault was unlocked between opening the menu and clicking (for example by auto-unlock). Lock it and try again.
• folder_off
  The card says “Vault file not found”. The maintenance items need the file. Click Locate Vault… and choose it, then lock (if needed) and right-click again.

Pocket Vaults

The same steps apply. A Pocket Vault can have two passwords; Change Password… changes whichever one you type as the current password and leaves the other untouched. The saved Keychain password is only replaced when it is the one you changed. Doghouse never shows which password a vault has saved, so if the saved password stops opening what you expect, type the password you want instead.

Forgot the current password?

Then it can’t be changed, and there is no reset. If it was saved in your Keychain, you can read it there: open Keychain Access (in Applications › Utilities) and search for KnoxFolder, Doghouse’s former name, under which its entries are stored; double-click the entry and tick Show password, which asks for your Mac login password. Otherwise the vault’s contents are unrecoverable by design; see the troubleshooting entry.

Outside Doghouse

A Standard Vault is an Apple encrypted disk image, and Doghouse changes the image’s own password. The new password is therefore what Finder, Disk Utility or hdiutil ask for when you open the vault without Doghouse. If you had told macOS to remember the old password in your keychain outside Doghouse, delete that entry.