Solved: Can’t add any cards to Apple Pay wallet on Mac

Question

Solved: Can’t add any cards to Apple Pay wallet on Mac

Posting this in case it is helpful:

I couldn’t add any cards to Apple Pay wallet on my new Mac Mini, all failed the same as if the bank was rejecting the request.

The only thing that worked was to create a new user account, and add the cards when logged in to that account.

I think what may have caused it was adding a Touch ID keyboard but I’m not certain.

Until I solved it, I tried all the following suggestions for fixing this which DID NOT work:

•Calling Apple support - they told me to use my bank’s mobile app to add the card to wallet instead of doing it through Settings, but that only works on iPhone and iPad, not Mac.

•Changing region to United States (even though it was that already).

•Rebooting into safe mode.

•Deleting Touch ID fingerprints and turning off all Touch ID options.

•Logging out of iCloud then back in.

P. S. Oddly, though I couldn’t add any of my own cards, Settings did list the cards of my partner who has his own account on the same Mac, and it let me add them to my wallet. When I asked the Apple support agent about this she said it was a known issue.

Mac mini, macOS 15.3

Posted on Mar 26, 2025 6:56 PM

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Answer 1

Jeff Donald

Level 8

36,646 points

Mar 27, 2025 3:54 AM in response to alexanderfromsalem

That’s great you were able to resolve the issue. The limitation is there can only be one Wallet in use on the Mac, even though there are several User accounts. I believe the limitation is due to the Secure Element not being able to have separate user partitions. The Secure Element is an industry standard and the standard does not currently permit multiple users. Sorry.

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Answer 2

Mar 27, 2025 9:53 AM in response to Jeff Donald

Yes I didn’t realize that limitation until I had nearly solved the problem. I think when I created the new account and tried adding cards to it for the first time, I got a message saying that only one user per machine could have cards and continuing would remove the other user’s cards. If things had been working properly, I would have seen that message earlier when logged into my original account.

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Answer 3

Jeff Donald

Level 8

36,646 points

Mar 27, 2025 10:19 AM in response to alexanderfromsalem

I agree there could/should be more notifications warning of the limitation. Other than adding more notifications, I don’t think there is solution that Apple can affect. SE is an ISO standard supported by the financial industry. To the best of my knowledge the standard does not support multiple accounts. It’s not an issue for most devices and users, because iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches are essentially single user/account devices.

It’s good to know to found a workaround that affords a usability you can live with.

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Answer 4

Mar 27, 2025 10:44 AM in response to Jeff Donald

My issue was not that the Secure Enclave only allows one Mac user per machine to have cards in the wallet. Rather it was that the system didn’t properly handle the use case of another user trying to add cards when there were already a different user’s cards in the wallet.

The other user’s cards were displayed as if they were mine, and although the system allowed me to try to add my own, it always failed. Both of those are obvious bugs.

I only saw the intended correct behavior after I created a new account. Then it informed me that another user already had cards in their account, and gave me the choice to remove their cards, so that I could add mine to my account instead.

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Solved: Can’t add any cards to Apple Pay wallet on Mac