KeyringEditor—A Simple Password Safe

KeyringEditor is a Java application that will read and write database files in the file format used by the original Keyring for Palm OS application. It lets you securely store secret information with only a single master password to remember. Use it to store passwords, online logins, account numbers or anything you want to store securely. Move the database file to the cloud and you can also access it using Palm Keyring for Android.

Download KeyringEditor 1.2—released Jan 2022
KeyringEditor-1-2.zip, 70,958 bytes
md5 hash: a5c67d4f1e1ce1374babd68e0287e7f6

Unzip the file, move the folder to a reasonable location on your machine and run KeyringEditor.jar. There is a readme file with installation instructions for Windows, Mac and Linux. I have tested KeyringEditor on Win 10 and OS X 10.11.4.

KeyringEditor 1.1 was written by Markus Griessnig and is based on Java Keyring v0.6 by Frank Taylor.

Brief Instructions

To start a new empty database select Tools/New database file. Choose a location to store the file and then open it using File/Open. The password is 'test'. Change the password using Tools/Convert database. The new database file contains a single example entry. The Delete, New Entry and Save buttons do what you'd expect. Access an entry by clicking on the title in the left panel. Double click on a web link in the right panel and KeyringEditor will try to open it in the default browser.

To change the encryption cipher used for the database use Tools/Convert database. Do not select 'format 4' or 'TripleDES.' These are no longer sufficiently secure and are present for backward compatibility only. AES128 is recommended. It is still sufficiently secure and AES256 is subject to export controls and requires installation of the Java Cryptography Extension. Select the highest number available for the number of 'Iterations.' This is the number of times a complex algorithm must be run to derive the cryptographic key from the password. The idea is that it slows down attempts at guessing the password. However, it is essential to also use a long and unguessable passphrase. A memorable passphrase is better than a single password. The level of security is directly related to the length and complexity of the passphrase and how easily it is guessed.

Tools/Edit categories allows the set of 16 category names to be edited. The 'Category' dropdown list at the top right allows an entry to be assigned to a category. Select the entry then choose a category from the dropdown list. The dropdown list top left can be used to restrict the list of entries displayed on the left to only those assigned to a specific category.

If you would prefer to use a modern password safe (highly recommended) Tools/Save to CSV file will save the data in a form that can easily be imported into KeePass version 2 using its Generic CSV Importer. (Don't forget to destroy the csv file after you import it.)

KeyringEditor 1.2—Jan 2022

• Remove limit on database file size.
• Modify CSV file export to work easily with Keepass v2 generic CSV importer.
• Add a warning that using database format 4 is no longer secure.
• Add double click on web link in notes panel opens web page in default browser.
• Add application icons for Windows and Mac.
• Change new database file format to version 5 AES128.
• Add quickstart guide.
• Add persistent state to store last filename.
• Add default Windows-1252 character encoding.
• Add filename and file details to About screen.
• Fix problem loading configuration file.

KeyringEditor 1.1.1—May 2018

• Change default for 'hide password' to 'show password.'
• Change default idle timeout to 20 minutes and clear screen on timeout.
• Add option for 10,000 iterations in convert database dialog.

Source Code

Source code for KeyringEditor 1.2. I used the Netbeans 8.2 integrated development environment to create it.

Source code for KeyringEditor 1.1 by Markus Griessnig.

Upgrading from a previous version of KeyringEditor

Just unzip the download and replace your existing KeyringEditor folder with the new one. The download contains a readme file with installation instructions for Windows, Mac and Linux.

License

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details: www.gnu.org/licenses.