Chrome passwords

danco

There was a discussion some time ago about how to get passwords from Chrome into 1PW, beginning with getting them into a CSV file, I think.

However, the instructions seemed to me to be for Windows, and I am wondering how to do it on a Mac.

Plain simple unencrypted passwords would be good enough, as they could then be entered as needed.

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1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided

AGAlumB

@danco: This is a good guide to enabling Chrome's import/export feature for passwords, and then @MrC ’s converter may be helpful to you if you want to modify a script there to create a 1PIF...but if you only have a few it may be easy enough to copy and paste them manually. Cheers! :)

danco

The problem is that on her machine Chrome is running so slowly it is unusable, so I want to work outside Chrome to pull out her passwords., and maybe get her to use Firefox

It isn't normal Chrome slowness, which I've heard plenty reports of, there's a beachball most of the time when she tries to use it. I suspect a corrupted file somewhere (perhaps as a result of a power cut) but don't know where. So far my attempts to get Chrome back to normal haven't got anywhere. I'm wondering if restoring all of Chrome from Time Machine might work.

AGAlumB

@danco: Hmm. This may be a silly question, but have you tried just installing a fresh copy of Chrome? If that doesn't help, it may be its support files...but that poses a problem because deleting that would delete any passwords she has saved there. So my thought is (presuming it's data corruption or something) Trash Chrome, install a new copy of Chrome, make a copy of the support folder, Trash the support folder, and then put the copy of the support folder back in its place. May not work, but at least you're not losing anything that way. If that fails, then I'd try Time Machine, since it would mean giving up any recent changes made...which may not be a bad thing, if the only thing changed was that something got corrupted. Let me know how it goes! :)

danco

I am thinking of doing exactly that, but the more options the better.

AGAlumB

Yes! :sunglasses: :+1:

danco

I have to deal with my friend’s machine lremotely. I was able to download a copy of the Chrome Login Data file to my computer, so I can try to decrypt that on my own machine.

I am not sure how to export the passwords on her computer. Google seems to be changing their approach, and many of the instructions for earlier versions of Chrome don't even work on version 63

But no luck so far.

1. I thought of just decrypting the file. But I haven’t been able to find easy instructions for reading an encrypted sqlite file even knowing the password. I have found instructions but I do not understand them.

2. So I tired another method. On my own copy of Chrome I added another profile (so as not to distrub my own profile), and in this fresh profile I copied the Login Data file. I thought that should work, but it didn’t seem to read this file. Possibly the issue here is that the original blank file has been cached and the new file is not being read. I haven’t tried clearing the cache yet, or restarting the computer. Any thoughts on how to get the file accepted in this approach?

AGAlumB

@danco: It sounds like you're getting hung up on exporting from Chrome. Is that the case? For some reason, I find it difficult to navigate Chrome's settings, so I usually just search. This will find you what you need:

chrome://flags/

Search for "export" and enable it.

chrome://settings/passwords?search=pass

There, under "Manage Passwords" and then "Saved Passwords" you'll either have a ⋮ button, or "Import" and "Export" buttons to the right depending on the version.

To export, you'll need to enter the macOS user account password for access to Chrome's Keychain items, an then you can save it as a CSV. Not exactly intuitive, but I hope that helps. :)

matthew_frederick

Unfortunately I'm not prompted for my macOS user account, so the file is effectively empty (just the column names).

I followed the other route, exporting them via sqlite as described at https://www.axllent.org/docs/view/export-chrome-passwords/, and though it exported the password table, but the passwords themselves are encrypted; again, I wasn't prompted for my macOS user account.

Any thoughts on why I'm not being prompted? I'd really, really love to get all of those passwords into 1Password (and then delete them from my Google account).

matthew_frederick

(FYI, I just realized I could ask Mr C over in this thread, so I'm trying that as well.)

danco

It's actually a bit harder than that in my situation.

First, Chrome on her machine is incredibly slow when running (not just usual slow, but taking minutes, not even seconds, to respond to anything). And I have returned home from visiting her, so have to use TeamViewer to control her machine. The last time I tried to open Chrome on her machine, it showed up in the Dock immediately, but even after a couple of minutes it did not show a window and did not appear in Activity Monitor. When I tried Force Quit it appeared in the list, but stayed there even after using the normal Force Quit command.

What I thought would work was to download data from her machine, and work on mine. But, though that works to an extent (all her bookmarks are present, for instance), for some reason, even though I have her password file (Login Data) in my Chrome (under a profile different from mine), no passwords show up. This surprises me.

But, as a safety measure, I was hoping to get a clear list of her password just in case what I did destroyed her current list. But I don't seem to be able to do that

AGAlumB

@matthew_frederick: Indeed, it looks like @MrC is already helping you in another discussion, so let's keep it to a single communication channel to avoid unnecessary confusion. :) :+1:

AGAlumB

@danco: Ohhh I see. Yeah, that makes more sense in that context. When you said "slowly" I thought you meant it would eventually load. That is much more problematic. That's bad news. Maybe good news, though, is that you've just clarified the problem for me. I was thinking about it the wrong way before, because I thought you were able to just wait it out and work with the data right on her machine. This is a bit different, and perhaps in a good way: I believe Chrome's passwords are not technically stored in Chrome, but rather in the macOS Keychain somehow. I'm not sure about exactly how that works though. All I see is something called "Chrome Safe Storage". It may be possible to export that Keychain data from her computer and import it into yours. I'm just not sure 1) exactly how to do that or 2) if that will, in fact, work. I'm not able to find good information on how Chrome stores passwords, only how to export them...which of course needs to be done using Chrome.

I knew some of this rang a bell, and I was able to find this old discussion involving Chrome exports which has a script that might help. That's big "might" though, as a lot has changed in Chrome since then. I also found another script here which looks promising. The problem, of course, is that Chrome isn't really working. Did you have any luck reinstalling it? If you move the app and its support world to the Desktop, you may be able to get it running again, and export normally. But if you're even able to get it to come up at all, you may be able to press ⌘ ⌥ J and use one of those scripts there in the console to export. Not sure if that will be possible given the challenges you're facing here, but maybe it's a useful idea.

danco

Thanks for all your help. All my attempts to get hold of her passwords directly failed. That included creating a new user on my machine whose login password was the same as hers, downloading her Chrome Application Support file to that account and running Chrome.

The good news is that the nuclear option worked fine. I was worried that it might lose her passwords, but it didn't.

What I did was to rename the Chrome folder in Application Support/Google to Chromeold. Then I restarted Chrome, which worked Ok but of course had none of her own data. Then I moved the password file (which is named Login Data) and bookmarks. A quick check suggests all is ok, but it needs longer testing by her.

I now suspect that the whole issue was caused by removal of some adware. Malwarebytes removed the adware, but seemed to leave remnants behind . I would guess those remnants were harmless, but when I tried to trash them in the Chrome extensions panel some oddities did occur. It's not worth giving all the details.

AGAlumB

That's certainly possible. Actually, my father installed Malwarebytes on his Mac about a month ago and it refused to shutdown properly or boot into macOS after that. Can't say I'm a fan now! Fortunately he'd literally backed up to Time Machine hours earlier, so we just restored it. Crazy.

Anyway, so glad you were able to get Chrome working again there. I feel a bit silly for not making the connection earlier that deleting the support folder wouldn't delete the passwords. Your friend is lucky to have you! :chuffed:

danco

Just to correct the wording of your last comment, in case anyone else runs into problems.

Deleting the support folder WOULD delete the passwords.

However, renaming the support folder (or moving it) preserves the passwords file in the renamed folder and it can then be moved into the new support folder that Chrome creates.

I've never had any issues with Malwarebytes itself. What seems to have happened in this case was something weird in the adware that meant Malwarebytes partially removed the adware but full removal went peculiar.

My friend browses a lot of video and music, and she seems to get adware regularly. So, unless you have a better answer, Malwarebytes seems valuable for getting rid of this.

Ben

Fair enough, and thanks for the update @danco. :) Glad to hear you were ultimately able to find a solution that seems to have worked. :+1:

Ben

AGAlumB

@danco: You're totally right on both counts: I shouldn't have said "delete", and while my recent experiences with Malwarebytes on macOS have been pretty awful, on Windows I find it indispensable. I'm sure that it's fine for a lot of people on Macs too, just not my poor dad. Cheers! :sweat:

MrC

As an FYI to future web surfers who encounter this thread...

I have just posted an update to the 1.10 version of the converter suite. It now includes a native chrome converter. It will decrypt and convert your Chrome form fill data (Logins, Credit Cards). Both macOS and Windows is supported.

Ben

:+1: :)

Ben