KeychainAccess
A simple Swift wrapper for the iOS/macOS Keychain that provides an easy-to-use API for secure credential storage.
What is KeychainAccess?
KeychainAccess is a Swift library that provides a simple, Swifty wrapper around Apple's Keychain Services API. It allows developers to securely store and retrieve sensitive data like passwords, tokens, and certificates across iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS apps with minimal boilerplate code. It solves the problem of dealing with the low-level, error-prone C API by offering a clean, modern interface.
iOS and macOS developers building apps that need secure storage for user credentials, authentication tokens, or other sensitive data. It's particularly useful for Swift developers who want a type-safe, idiomatic way to interact with the Keychain.
Developers choose KeychainAccess because it dramatically simplifies Keychain usage with a Swifty API, reduces common errors, and supports advanced features like biometric authentication and iCloud sync out of the box, all while maintaining full compatibility with Apple's security standards.
Overview
Simple Swift wrapper for Keychain that works on iOS, watchOS, tvOS and macOS.
Use Cases
Best For
- Securely storing user login credentials in iOS apps
- Managing OAuth tokens and API keys with biometric protection
- Sharing credentials between an iOS app and its Safari extension
- Syncing passwords across devices via iCloud Keychain
- Adding Touch ID or Face ID authentication to sensitive data
- Debugging and inspecting Keychain contents during development
Not Ideal For
- Cross-platform applications using React Native or Flutter that need a unified secure storage solution across iOS and Android
- Server-side Swift projects deployed on Linux or non-Apple servers, where the Keychain API is unavailable
- Teams requiring low-level, direct control over every Keychain Services API call for security auditing or customization
- Projects where minimizing third-party dependencies is critical, such as in regulated environments with strict compliance requirements
Pros & Cons
Pros
Uses subscript syntax and fluent methods, making code readable and reducing boilerplate compared to the error-prone C-based Keychain Services, as shown in the simple save/retrieve examples.
Works seamlessly across iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and Mac Catalyst, with versioning that supports Swift 3 through 5, ensuring broad compatibility.
Supports biometric authentication (Touch ID/Face ID) and iCloud synchronization with easy configuration, leveraging Apple's native security model without extra setup.
Provides methods like allKeys() and allItems() to inspect stored entries, along with printable Keychain objects, which aids development and troubleshooting.
Cons
Only supports Apple platforms, making it useless for cross-platform or web projects, and ties your code to iOS/macOS environments.
Enabling features like shared web credentials requires configuring entitlements, server associations, and proper threading for biometric ops, adding development overhead.
As a third-party library, it introduces potential breaking changes with Swift updates and requires ongoing updates, though it's well-maintained with versioned releases.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
ValetValet lets you securely store data in the iOS, tvOS, watchOS, or macOS Keychain without knowing a thing about how the Keychain works. It’s easy. We promise.
UICKeyChainStoreUICKeyChainStore is a simple wrapper for Keychain on iOS, watchOS, tvOS and macOS. Makes using Keychain APIs as easy as NSUserDefaults.
keychain-swiftHelper functions for saving text in Keychain securely for iOS, OS X, tvOS and watchOS.
LocksmithA powerful, protocol-oriented library for working with the keychain in Swift.
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