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macOS · Desktop App

Fix: “Colabio cannot access secure storage on this Mac”

If the Colabio desktop app shows this message, your Mac's login keychain — the place where macOS lets apps save logins securely — is stuck in a locked state. This is a macOS issue, not something you did wrong: it usually happens after a sudden shutdown, a power loss, or a macOS update. While the keychain is locked, macOS blocks Colabio (and other apps) from saving your login, so the app keeps asking you to log in. The fix takes about a minute.

1

Unlock your keychain

Open Terminal (press ⌘ + Space, type “Terminal”, press Enter), paste this command, and press Enter. When asked for a password, type your Mac login password — the one you use to unlock your computer.

security unlock-keychain ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db
2

Reopen Colabio and log in

Quit Colabio completely (click the Colabio icon in the menu bar and choose Quit), open it again, and log in. Your login will now be saved. If macOS shows a permission dialog mentioning Colabio, choose “Always Allow”.

3

Restart your Mac to confirm

Restart your Mac and open Colabio once more. If you are still logged in, everything is fully fixed. If Colabio asks you to log in again, see the section below.

If your Mac password is not accepted

That means your keychain still uses an older password (this can happen after a password reset, including ones made by your company's IT). Try any previous passwords you remember in step 1. Once one of them works, sync the keychain to your current password with:

security set-keychain-password ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db

Enter the old password first, then your current Mac login password as the new one. If no password works, contact support@colabio.org — or your IT team if this is a company-managed Mac.

Is this safe? What Colabio can and cannot see

  • The commands above are Apple's own built-in tools. Your password is typed into macOS — Colabio never sees, stores, or transmits it.
  • Unlocking your keychain does not give Colabio access to your other passwords. macOS protects every app's saved items separately, and Colabio can only read the single entry it created for its own login.
  • Colabio will never ask you to type your Mac password into the app itself. If anything ever does, don't.