The MacTrack – iPhone, iPod, iPod Touch and Mac News

Easily copy passwords in Keychain Access

by Rob Griffiths, Macworld.com

As you’re probably aware, many OS X applications and features use the system’s built-in keychain to securely store your usernames and passwords—programs like Safari and Mail, and login information for other Macs on your network are but a few examples. You can see and work with this stored information using the Keychain Access program, in the Applications -> Utilities folder. If you’ve ever forgotten a password, for instance, you can look it up in Keychain Access.

Until just recently, I would look up forgotten passwords by double-clicking the appropriate account in Keychain Access, clicking the Show Password box in the new dialog that opened, entering my admin password in the authorization dialog that appeared, then selecting and copying the now-visible password. Ugh. I was sure there must be an easier way, but nothing in the program’s menus seemed to do the trick.

Then a friend pointed me to a much simpler—and for some of you, probably amazingly obvious—method of doing the same thing. In the long list of accounts in Keychain Access, control-click (or right-click) on the account’s name, and select Copy Password to Clipoard from the contextual menu. Enter your admin password in the authorization box and press Return, and you’re done—the password is now on your clipboard.

This feature has existed at least since OS X 10.4, but I only learned of it just recently—yet another reason why I dislike features that only exist in contextual menus!

via Easily copy passwords in Keychain Access | Mac OS X Hints | Macworld.

Do you find it a chore to delete a message in Gmail?  Or, do you prefer to use the keyboard rather than moving from mouse to keyboard and back again?

I do.

Here is a handy hint to help, I’ve just revolutionised the way I use Gmail with a few simple keystrokes:

Go to Settings
Go to Labs
Activate Keyboard Shortcuts (you may have to click on settings again to refresh)
Choose Keyboard Shortcuts from within Settings
Locate “Move to Trash” and set it to be “-” (a minus sign)
Locate “Mark as Unread” and set it to “§” (or whatever is the key below the Esc key)

Now from your inbox simply hit the minus key to delete the message, or from within a message, hit minus and it’s gone, moved to Trash in easy one step no mouse needed – or of course you can hit ‘y’ to archive it.
When you delete a message whilst reading it your inbox is then re-displayed.

So, I go: enter (to read) “y” or “-” to archive/trash and then enter again to read next one (and repeat).

It’s *so* quick as” -” and enter (on numpad) are co-located – it’s easy.

Use “§” to mark a a message as unread (I do this if I want to revisit the message for actioning as I keep my inbox empty).  I use the § key as it’s a similar location to Esc and I use it to “escape” back to the inbox leaving the message unread.

Of course, if easier, you can choose other keys if you find them more suitable but make sure they aren’t already allocated to another function.

A useful summary, via the Apple support website, of extra features of the Apple Mac OS X’s dock, and modifier keys that help you manipulate it.