What to do if you forgot your Fastlane Match passphrase

The Problem

You set up a Fastlane match, but can't remember the passphrase to decrypt the repo.

If you try to run any match action, you will get something like this:

bad decrypt - Couldn't decrypt the repo, please make sure you enter the right password!

You can easily support sarunw.com by checking out this sponsor.

AI Grammar: Correct grammar, spell check, check punctuation, and parphrase.

Try it for Free

Solution

There are two ways to solve this.

1. Recover your lost passphrase.
2. Reset your passphrase.

Recover your Fastlane match passphrase

To recover your passphrase, you must have access to the machine that generates the repo or access it once.

Then you do the following:

1. Open Keychain Access app.
2. Search for match_[your_repo_name].
   
3. Double click on the item and click on the Show password checkbox.
   
4. Enter your machine password, and you will see your lost passphrase.

Reset your passphrase

If you don't have access to the machine anymore, you can remove your certificates and provisioning profiles and start fresh.

To do that:

1. Delete all files and folders from your match repo and commit the changes.
2. Then, you can use your match operation again.

You might consider running match nuke to clean up unaccessible certificates.