How to Finally Use Your ICloud Passwords on Windows
The iCloud Windows app lets you access photos, mail, calendar, and more in iCloud on your Windows PC, but something was missing – iCloud Keychain. If you primarily use Apple products but have a Windows PC for gaming or a desktop at home, this is what you really need.
ICloud Keychain is arguably one of the best and safest ways to sync passwords between devices, and you can now access all your iCloud Keychain passwords on your Windows computer. You can even automatically enter passwords using browser extensions.
How to set up iCloud passwords on Windows
First, you need to download the iCloud app for Windows (make sure you have version 12.5 or higher). Open the app and sign in to your iCloud account.
To use the iCloud passwords feature, you’ll need to enable two-factor authentication on your iCloud account , and your Windows computer will also need some form of lockdown. This can be Windows Hello biometric lock or simple password lock (if you don’t have this setting, the app will help you).
Now launch the iCloud Windows app and make sure Passwords is turned on. If it is not, enable it and click the Apply button to save your settings.
Then go to Windows Search and open the iCloud Passwords app. After authenticating with Windows Hello, the app will open and you will see all the logins and passwords stored in your iCloud account.
You can view passwords, copy them, or even add a new login here.
How to auto-fill iCloud passwords in Windows browsers
Accessing iCloud Keychain logins and passwords on Windows is useful, but only if you can do something about it. Just listing your logins won’t get you that far. Thankfully, Apple has created a set of password autocomplete extensions for Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge that work directly with the iCloud app.
After installing the extension, click the icon in the toolbar. Enter the six-digit authentication code from the iCloud Windows app and you’re done.
The next time you get to the login page you want to auto-complete from iCloud Keychain, click the iCloud password extension and select login.
The extension will instantly automatically fill in the username and password in the appropriate fields. This feature works both ways – when you create a new account using your browser, the iCloud password extension can save it to your iCloud Keychain so it’s available across all your Apple devices.