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

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)

Code

python3 -m keyring set PASSWORD_NAME USER_NAME

Running that will ask you to put in the password.

Then, retrieve them in scripts with:

Code

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.

Code

pip3 install keyring

### Setting Passwords From Scripts

You can set your passwords in a script with:

Code

import keyring

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

### Setting Passwords From The Command Line

You can set passwords directly from the command line with:

Code

python3 -m keyring set SERVICE USERNAME

You'll be prompted to enter your password from there

### Retrieving Passwords

And retrieve them with:

Code

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.

Code

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