Before the advent of iCloud, Apple’s Mobile Me service once offered the ability to sync data from select applications such as Keychain Access between Macs. Since, the feature has been set aside, but no need to fear, with the help of Dropbox and a bit of good old-fashioned know-how, we can set things right once again.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the Keychain Access application, it’s a great little utility provided by Apple for storing passwords and other sensitive information in a secure format, which can be accessed from applications like Safari when a password is needed. Keychain can be found in the Utilities folder of the Applications folder on your hard disk.

Before setting out to make our Keychain sync between Macs, we’ll need to create a Dropbox account, download and install the Dropbox application, and change some settings. To do so, head on over to http://www.dropbox.com/ and click “Log in” located in the top right corner of the page, then click “Create an account” and follow the on-screen instructions. After you’ve created your account, download a copy of the Dropbox application and install it on any two or more Macs that you would like to sync your Keychain with.

Once you have installed Dropbox on at least two Macs, choose the Mac that you consider to be your primary workstation to begin. The reason you want to do this is because if you have used the Keychain Access app in the past, you can preserve any passwords that you’ve previously stored by syncing the existing Keychain file.

If the Dropbox application isn’t already running (look for an icon that looks like an open cardboard box in system menu bar), open the Finder, navigate to the Applications folder, and double-click on the Dropbox app. You should now see what appears to be an open cardboard box in the top right corner of the system menu bar.

Click on the icon and select preferences from the drop-down menu. This will open the Dropbox Preferences Pane. Here you just want to make sure that Start Dropbox On System Startup and Enable LAN Sync are checked. By checking Enable LAN Sync, Dropbox can sync information across your local network instead of syncing across the Internet, saving time and bandwidth.

Next, return to the Finder, click Go from the Finder menu bar, and select Go to Folder from the drop-down menu. A dialog box will appear. Type ~/Library/ and press return, which will take you to your Library folder located within your home folder. From here, navigate to your Keychains folder. In most cases, you should see a login.keychain file within the Keychains folder. If not, no need to panic. You can attempt to find your Keychain file by doing a Spotlight search for .keychain or create a new one from within the Keychain application. Drag the file from its location and place it within your new Dropbox folder, which is located inside of your Home folder by default.

The last three steps here are simple. Open the Keychain app by navigating to Applications/Utilities. Once open, select the login keychain on the left that should now appear to be missing (noted by its icon) and press delete on your keyboard.

Click Delete References in the dialog box.

Lastly, click File from the menu bar and select Add Keychain from the drop-down menu. Navigate to the Dropbox folder and select the login.keychain file that we previously placed inside. That’s it! To complete the process, repeat the last three steps here on any other Mac that you wish to sync your Keychain with and have Dropbox installed on.