Credential Store

lastmod 2025-11-25created 2020-03-1113 edits

Mac OSX

Passwords are stored in the OS X Keychain.

Linux/Unix

If running, GNOME Keyring is used, otherwise qtkeychain tries to use KWallet (via D-Bus), if available.

Windows

By default, the Windows Credential Store (aka Windows Credential Locker) is used (requires Windows 7 or newer). Pass -DUSE_CREDENTIAL_STORE=OFF to cmake use disable it. If disabled, QtKeychain uses the Windows API function CryptProtectData to encrypt the password with the user's logon credentials. The encrypted data is then persisted via QSettings.

CredRead/CredWrite/CredDelete API on Windows

Freedesktop

Secret Service supports many DE including GNOME (requires secretstorage)

KDE4 & KDE5

KWallet (requires dbus)

Docker

Use secret. (In a container, it can be checked as files under /run/secrets.)

See also

• Key management
• QtKeychain
• Secure Coding
• Serial code
• Product key (License key)
• TruffleHog - open source that continuously scans to keep things like private keys and credentials from leaking
• shhgit - open-source search tool for preventing secret leaks
• HashiCorp Vault
• Git:Credential
• Docker:Secret
• gokey - a lightweight password manager that "computes" passwords without any storage

Favorite site

• Stackoverflow - How can I store a password in my Qt application?
• Github - r-lib/keyring project site - Access the system credential store from R