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Mac Keychain: Evernote wants to use your confidential information stored in "Evernote" in your keychain


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  • 3 months later...

I am consistently getting the message described above, as well. I click "Deny" and then seem to be able to use Evernote anyway.

How can I disable the popup? I do not use the Keychain app at all, and don't want any credentials stored in it. I'm happy to manually log in wherever needed, but I can't figure out what's causing the message to keep popping up even when Evernote is already logged in.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/2/2021 at 1:03 PM, kritimehrotra said:

I am consistently getting the message described above, as well. I click "Deny" and then seem to be able to use Evernote anyway.

How can I disable the popup? I do not use the Keychain app at all, and don't want any credentials stored in it. I'm happy to manually log in wherever needed, but I can't figure out what's causing the message to keep popping up even when Evernote is already logged in.

Any update on this? It's been 10 days and every few minutes this popup shows up. I don't know what option I have (other than quitting the Evernote application entirely, which defeats the purpose of having it ready for quick note taking).

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  • Level 5

Have you already done what was proposed in this thread above ?

If yes, and you still have a problem, I would suggest a complete uninstall of EN from your Mac. To be sure I delete everything, I use the app AppCleaner.

Then reinstall, log in and if necessary confirm the keychain request as described above.

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11 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Have you already done what was proposed in this thread above ?

If yes, and you still have a problem, I would suggest a complete uninstall of EN from your Mac. To be sure I delete everything, I use the app AppCleaner.

Then reinstall, log in and if necessary confirm the keychain request as described above.

Thanks for the response!

Let me restate my issue. I do not use Keychain, do not wish to use Keychain, and therefore do not want to give permission to Evernote to use Keychain. Is it impossible to use Evernote on Mac without using Keychain? If so, I may need to stop using Evernote.

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27 minutes ago, kritimehrotra said:

Thanks for the response!

Let me restate my issue. I do not use Keychain, do not wish to use Keychain, and therefore do not want to give permission to Evernote to use Keychain. Is it impossible to use Evernote on Mac without using Keychain? If so, I may need to stop using Evernote.

I'm guessing you're using other apps which also use Keychain. It's the standard secure place for applications to store sensitive information on macOS, similar to the Registry on Windows. As NickL (Evernote staff) said further up this thread:

Quote

If you receive a prompt from stating Evernote needs access to your Keychain Access app, please input your Mac's administrator password (the same one you use to login to your computer) and press "Always Allow". Evernote requires access to Keychain Access on your Mac to write your Evernote credentials into it. The credentials will be used from time to time by Evernote to authenticate with the Evernote service.

If you want to know what Evernote is storing, open up the "Keychain Access" utility and search for Evernote (and ensure the "All Items" category is selected in the lower-left).

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Thanks, @Paul A.. I'm a new-ish Mac user, and the comparison to the Windows registry was what I was looking for to convince me. I've selected the "Always Allow" option for now, so hopefully should be all good. Will reach back out in case any further problems pop up, but otherwise should be resolved! Thanks again.

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  • Shane D. changed the title to Mac Keychain: Evernote wants to use your confidential information stored in "Evernote" in your keychain
  • 2 months later...
  • 1 year later...

Sorry to be a contrarian, but I am not aware of any other MacOS apps which require granting login PW credentials. While EN may deny this, by agreeing, we are granting EN access to our entire computer / OS / environment. Whether or not EN chooses to use this access is an EN internal policy question - it does not change the technical fact. Why does the EN architecture require this level of access unlike other apps? Is there no programming alternative? I can't see continuing to use EN if this is a requirement. 

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  • Level 5

Then skip it.

I am really tired to explain people not understanding simple facts that white is white, black is black, and you can tell one from the other.

Just a simple example: Before (I think) Monterey every app had automatically granted "full disk access". By default, because without storing and retrieving, no app can possibly work. Then Apple decided to make it a Security / Privacy entry. Now people start asking if it is insecure to grant this access, why are there no 5 level of intermediate access, etc. OK. It always HAD this access. Don't grant it now, the app will not work, or several functions will be curtailed. Fine with me, it's your computer, your decision, and who am I to tell you it's safe.

I am not aware I was ever asked about keychain access, so probably you want to use Apple SSO. It is quite obvious why keychain access is needed for SSO. Forget about it, use your usual EN login, be happy, done. It is better anyhow, especially if you beef it up with 2FA.

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  • 4 months later...
On 2/26/2021 at 3:59 PM, Nick L. said:
If you receive a prompt from stating Evernote needs access to your Keychain Access app, please input your Mac's administrator password (the same one you use to login to your computer) and press "Always Allow". Evernote requires access to Keychain Access on your Mac to write your Evernote credentials into it. The credentials will be used from time to time by Evernote to authenticate with the Evernote service.

Seems like a security problem in the making. Is there any way around granting Evernote access to the Keychain? 

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  • Level 5

Don’t like it: Simply don’t store your login data in the keychain, by not allowing access. Then your login is not in the keychain, which means you need to enter it every time you open the EN client.

Usually you safeguard your user account, and it handles login to all sort of apps for you in the background.

Are you aware that EVERY app you want to save a login for you on a Mac needs keychain access ? Every single one that saves a login there needs it. But giving this to EN is a problem for you ? 

It is not required, you „pay“ with a loss of comfort.

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16 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Don’t like it: Simply don’t store your login data in the keychain, by not allowing access. Then your login is not in the keychain, which means you need to enter it every time you open the EN client.

Usually you safeguard your user account, and it handles login to all sort of apps for you in the background.

Are you aware that EVERY app you want to save a login for you on a Mac needs keychain access ? Every single one that saves a login there needs it. But giving this to EN is a problem for you ? 

It is not required, you „pay“ with a loss of comfort.

Actually, I don't use Keychain for anything. I'm aware Mac uses it for some background stuff -- not exactly sure what. But I don't store a single password there. And I don't want to store my Evernote password there ... but Evernote seems to be insisting that I do. 

The price in this case isn't password at login. It's dismissing a dialog every few minutes or so, whenever Evernote is running on the desktop. 

Been an Evernote user for years. Recently factory-reset the Mac and this started happening. So I guess I just caved last time and gave it Keychain access? Either it's a bug or it's just lousy UX. Either way, it betrays a lack of respect for user choice as to how to secure passwords. Am I missing something? 

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  • Level 5

Probably something was stored there, from a time ago. MacOS wasn’t always asking so much for permissions, this started with the latest OS releases.

My best bet is you removed this information when you resetted your Mac.

Not sure why you are preoccupied with using keychain. It stores everything with hardware encryption, even Apple can’t get at it.

If you are worrying about account security, you should set up 2FA. Then even user & password is not enough to get at the account.

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2 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Probably something was stored there, from a time ago. MacOS wasn’t always asking so much for permissions, this started with the latest OS releases.

My best bet is you removed this information when you resetted your Mac.

Not sure why you are preoccupied with using keychain. It stores everything with hardware encryption, even Apple can’t get at it.

What? I just don't use Keychain. I wasn't preoccupied with it at all, until Evernote started pinging me every few minutes to start using it. 

Honestly, if you don't have a helpful answer, don't post anything. 

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  • Level 5

This answer was helpful, but maybe not for you. Anyhow you show a lack of respect towards another user trying to help you.

But I don’t care - if you prefer to stick with your problem, why did you ask for help in first place ?

Your options: On a subscription, ask support.

On Free maybe somebody else will help you out. Your unfriendly answer diminishes this chance somewhat, I’m afraid …  

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4 hours ago, galenmoore said:

Actually, I don't use Keychain for anything.

If you open up "Keychain Access" on your Mac and sort on the 'Date Modified' descending -- you'll see that you are using it for a lot of things. You just aren't directly using it or aware of it. Maybe that's a "well actually" or pedantic kind of statement -- but I don't mean it to be that way.

For example, I also use the 'Things' task manager and I see it has an entry in Keychain. So does the 'DayOne' app. So does 'Daily'. So does 'Bear'. So do a lot of my other Mac Apps.

I must have given access to Evernote once and I've never been bothered with a dialog since -- or perhaps I've never seen a dialog and it was just able to store things in there at one point - I just don't remember.

The point is, you *are* using Keychain already -- everybody with a Mac is using Keychain else they couldn't work.

Giving access to Evernote to use Keychain doesn't mean that Evernote can ferret out all your other Keychain credentials or anything.

In general, when you give an app access to store information in the macOS Keychain, it does not automatically grant the app access to all the other data stored in the Keychain. The Keychain is designed to securely store sensitive information such as passwords, cryptographic keys, and certificates.

Each application has its own "keychain access group" that defines the specific set of items it can access within the Keychain. By default, an app can only access the items it has created or stored within its designated keychain access group. This isolation prevents apps from accessing each other's data within the Keychain.

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