Keeping your passwords safe and secure is crucial: They’re what unlock all of your digital accounts, from email clients to social media apps to payment services, and these are places where you don’t want unwelcome visitors wandering around.
In the modern age, most of us have dozens of these accounts at least—but to maintain high levels of security, you need passwords that are unique and lengthy, which gives you the problem of having to remember them all.
The fix is using a password manager, which remembers all your logins for you (and even helps you invent strong passwords). There are plenty to choose from, but here we’ll take a look at the Google Password Manager, which is free to use and works on most devices.
Finding and setting up Google Password Manager
The obvious place to start with the Google Password Manager, if you’re completely new to it, is inside Google Chrome on the desktop. On any open tab, click the three dots (top right), then choose Passwords and Autofill > Google Password Manager. From here you can view and edit passwords, check for weak and duplicated passwords, and configure how the Google Password Manager works inside Chrome.
Click Settings, then Offer to save passwords and passkeys—this means Chrome will remember your logins in the future. You can also import passwords from another password manager, if needed, from the same screen. Once your passwords have been remembered, you can enable Sign in automatically to speed up the sign-in process when you land on a recognized site.
That sets you up for Chrome on your computer, but to get at your passwords from any device, you need to sync all of this information to your Google account. From a Chrome tab, click the three dots (top right), then Settings > You and Google. If you’re not already signed into Google, you can do that here, and click Sync and Google services > Manage what you sync to sync passwords to the cloud and other devices.
You’re up and running, but there are other places to get at the Google Password Manager. There’s actually a web interface that closely mirrors the interface you get inside Chrome—but you can get at it in any web browser or in Chrome when you’re not signed into your Google account (on someone else’s laptop, maybe).
As you would expect, Google Password Manager is tightly integrated into Android. From Settings, choose Passwords, passkeys and accounts (Pixel phones), or Security and privacy > More security settings > Passwords, passkeys, and autofill (Galaxy phones). Set up Google Password Manager here, and your passwords will be saved and retrieved for recognized apps on Android as well as inside Chrome.
