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I am on Ubuntu and I have forgotten the password for my Gnome Keyring (yes, stupid me, I know). Any way I can get it back? I have already looked at this link, but it says it's not possible if my home directory is encrypted and unfortunately my home directory is encrypted.

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6 Answers 6

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Resetting everything (delete all passwords and start new keyring):

rm ~/.local/share/keyrings/login.keyring

Then, log out and log back in. Ubuntu will automatically create a new login.keyring for you.

Or

Navigate to Places > Home. Press Ctrl + H to view "hidden files". Navigate to .local > share > keyrings and delete login.keyring

Using the same keyring (resetting keyring password but keeping old passwords in keyring):

  1. Make a backup of the keyring

     cd ~/.local/share/keyrings/
     cp login.keyring login.keyring.backup
    

and after that delete login.keyring file

    rm ~/.local/share/keyrings/login.keyring
  1. Create a new keyring file from Gnome Keyring with the name login

  2. Replace the new keyring file with the backup of the old keyring file

     cd ~/.local/share/keyrings/
     mv login.keyring.backup login.keyring      
    

Note: before Ubuntu 12.10 the path to the keyrings folder was ~/.gnome2/keyrings/ instead of ~/.local/share/keyrings/.

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  • 13
    how to do step 2? Feb 27, 2015 at 13:04
  • 2
    I thought it was a bit simple, it hasn't worked for me. It still says my password is wrong
    – Madivad
    Apr 23, 2016 at 22:16
  • 16
    I wonder why (and how) resetting the keyring password while keeping old passwords should work. And indeed it doesn't work for me (it says "The unlock password was incorrect")
    – Scz
    Aug 15, 2016 at 8:12
  • 13
    Indeed, "resetting keyring password but keeping old passwords in keyring" sounds absurd.
    – Alexey
    Aug 26, 2016 at 12:52
  • 2
    I thought step 2 meant run seahorse, click on "File" in top menu and choose new, then select "Password Keyring", hit continue and enter for name "login".
    – eshaya
    May 3, 2017 at 19:39
56
  1. Start up Ubuntu's Dash (top most icon in Unity or press Super)
  2. Type Pass to get Passwords and Keys and start this (this will start the Gnome Keyring frontend seahorse)
  3. Next
    • If the password is known: Under Passwords the default folder select unlock, or
    • If the password is not known: right mouse click and delete for resetting.

Next time Ubuntu will ask for a new password for the keyring.

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  • 2
    Thanks! (Or type seahorse directly.)
    – caw
    Jun 11, 2017 at 23:08
  • 2
    Right clicking and then clicking Change Password works.
    – Haggra
    Dec 30, 2019 at 23:45
  • To me this is the right answer. Thanks:)
    – Barra
    Jul 13, 2022 at 14:45
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Solved this by installing seahorse frontend.

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  • 5
    Note this is installed by default on Ubuntu installs.
    – Seanny123
    Sep 3, 2014 at 14:39
  • 6
    @Seanny123 not installed by default on Xubuntu, at least.. probably also not on kubuntu/lubuntu/etc. Dec 11, 2016 at 17:50
  • Well I don't see section "Passwords" in seahorse.
    – holms
    Apr 2, 2023 at 23:25
  • @holms try back button first.
    – jarno
    Dec 22, 2023 at 18:35
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The answer for removing the specific file for rm ~/.local/share/keyrings/login.keyring does not work on all forms of Ubuntu.

One should open up the file manager and show hidden files (CTRL + H). Then one should see .local/share/keyrings delete all of the files in this directory and you should be good to go.

caja

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  • 2
    Works for me. i tried the other suggestions before. this is the first workings at my machine :) Linux Mint Version 20
    – SL5net
    Sep 3, 2020 at 6:08
  • 2
    THIS should be the accepted solution
    – Kleysley
    Feb 2, 2022 at 13:31
  • Thanks, we don't even need to log out and log back in. Keyring is useful to store a VPN user key password so we can reconnect automatically in case we are disconnected (my Ethernet USB adapter keeps disconnecting me when I touch it or there is a vibration when typing too strong on the laptop keyboard).
    – baptx
    Mar 10, 2022 at 15:54
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I'm on Ubuntu MATE 16.04 and deleting files in ~/.local/share/keyrings/ didn't help me. What helped though is running seahorse and changing login password. I entered my current password and typed the same as new one. Then I logged out and logged is and my login password became password for Gnome2 Key Storage.

enter image description here

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  • You don't want to delete the directory gnome-keyring, just the 2 files inside it. Then it will just make fresh files that have no passwords.
    – Brian
    May 27, 2023 at 21:54
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Um, this question and answers is all over the planet! I couldn't figure out what is going on. The distinction seems to be whether or not the old password is available. The most common cause of this problem is restoring /home/user after a clean OS upgrade during which the user's login password was changed, for whatever reason.

There are other possibilities, such as one mentioned that the login password was unacceptably short for gnome-keyring rules.

The following will not work to solve this problem: rm ~/.local/share/keyrings/login.keyring because there are two key rings, login and user So: rm ~/.local/share/keyrings/*.keyring will remove both.

It's really difficult for the problem to remain after deleting the key rings, since they no longer exist, and new ones must be created! This is the case when the password is unavailable.

With that option, you'll need to reenter your various passwords that were stored previously on the key ring, as you use the applications that require them. The key ring will remember each one, and that will be it.

If the old password is known, then gnome-keyring or seahorse can be used to change the password to the new login password, eliminating the need to keep entering it.

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  • So how to create new keyring? No i don't have a section of Password in seahorse at all!
    – holms
    Apr 2, 2023 at 23:28

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