You Can Now Share Passwords With Your Google Family Group
Making it much easier for families to use Google Password Manager. As reported by Android Authority , the password sharing feature, which was originally announced in February of this year, has begun rolling out to Google Password Manager.
According to Google support documents , the new feature will allow users to “securely” share copies of their saved passwords with members of their family group.
This means you will need to create or create a family group to use this feature. You won’t be able to share information with any old Google account. If you’re already a member of a family group and using Google Password Manager for Android, you should now see a new Share button next to your passwords, although Android Authority reports that this may not be the case on desktop yet.
I can also confirm that none of my computers were able to access this feature, nor was my iPhone. However, PC and iOS must eventually access it through their respective Chrome apps.
Sharing passwords has always been a very difficult task, especially because text messages and emails are not very secure. Having a password sharing option available right within Google Password Manager will undoubtedly make a free password manager even more attractive to users who already trust Google with their information.
Other password managers such as 1Password ,LastPass , Bitwarden and even relative newcomer Proton Pass also offer password sharing functionality, although as with Google’s reliance on Family Groups, they all have their limitations.
Let’s hope Google expands this feature in the future – perhaps with something like LastPass’s one-time password feature, which allows you to share a password with someone without actually giving them the password. This OTP also expires after a certain amount of time to ensure the security of your account.
Keep an eye out for new sharing features coming to your Google Password Manager in the coming days. It should be available as part of the May Google Play Services v24.20 update.