What is a good password management solution for a non-tech person who uses iPhone and Macbook?
I have a friend who is using Apple’s Passwords app, but she doesn’t have her iPhone and Macbook linked, so her Passwords apps aren’t synced. She also has trouble distinguishing which app is storing / filling in passwords as she has passwords saved in Brave, Chrome, and Passwords on both devices. For example, she’ll have a different password saved for her banking across both of her devices. She’s often has to reset her password with the providers, and is getting so burned out that she’s reverted back to using the same, very simple password for each service.
I’m not sure this is a technical issue (as in “needs a better password manager”). This sounds to me like a “person needs to change their habits” issue.
Why isn’t she syncing passwords using the built-in Apple passwords app? Why is she using Brave AND Chrome? What’s the exact issue she’s struggling with?
The simplest answer if she’s all-in on Apple and not tech savvy is simply to use the Apple Password Manager. The integration will be seamless and it’ll sync to all her devices. If there’s a specific reason she’s not using that, then we need to know why so we can suggest other password managers that will address that concern.
She doesn’t know how to sync her devices. I’m not an Apple user, so I would need to do some research on how to do that. Does this involve setting up iCloud?
She says that some websites won’t work on Brave and so she uses Chrome.
She’s not tech savvy at all. When a window pops up to insert a password, she can’t tell if it’s Passwords or the browser that’s suggesting the password.
Yeah iCloud is always on you can’t blanket turn it off, but you can individually turn off syncing for different things like passwords. There’s is an edge case where if you sign in to your Apple account through the App Store and not anywhere else then you won’t have icloud enabled, maybe she accidentally did that?
I agree with Fria. As much as I would personally love to see people using other options like Bitwarden or Proton, I think if she’s starting to get frustrated it would be best to help walk her through getting set up on Apple Passwords and syncing it. And maybe just switching back to Safari with AdGuard and the other hardening we recommend on the site. Safari has more privacy protections than Chrome, both by default and after hardening.
It’s not ideal, but it’s WAY better than re-using the same crap password everywhere.
One thing that would really help with the confusion: once Passwords is syncing, export or move her logins out of Brave and Chrome. Then delete them there and turn off password saving in both browsers, so Apple’s Passwords is the only thing that ever offers to fill. If she still needs Chrome for some sites, Apple has an iCloud Passwords extension for Chrome on the Mac that fills from the same vault. That way there’s just one place her passwords live, and she won’t end up with different bank passwords on different devices.