How Do I Access My Work Passwords From Home Devices?
What a week we’ve had! It seems like it’s still Monday, but maybe it’s just me. We helped identify cable modems and internet service provider speeds ; how to set up a work laptop with a monitor at home; talked about why your work laptop does not cope well with wireless networks ; and helped to eliminate the constantly annoying fun ” now my main computer does not boot into Windows .”
There’s a lot more to come – you’ve sent in a number of nasty work-from-home problems you would like to solve, and I encourage you to keep dropping them into my inbox ! Every Friday I will answer questions, no matter how large or small. I promise you that! (If I’m not on vacation).
In today’s post, I’m answering a fun email question from Lifehacker reader Daisy . I suspect some of you are currently facing this problem too.
Question:
“Is there a way to transfer (working) my saved Chrome passwords to my iPhone / iPad (home)? It’s killing me to retype each one by hand. Gratitude!”
Big answer:
Oh yeah. Let’s solve this right now, because there is no reason why you have to struggle with typing long, complex and secure passwords more than once. And whatever you do, don’t let that be an excuse to change your long, complex, and secure passwords to something simpler. No, no, no: convenience is the enemy of security.
The super simple answer to this question is that you only need to install Chrome on your iPhone and iPad, sign in with the account you use to access the browser on your work system, and sync your passwords. How simple it is.
A slightly more complex nuance is that you might not want to sync everything you do in Chrome on your iPhone or iPad with your work account. However, that’s okay – you can sync multiple accounts across your devices, although switching between them on iOS and iPadOS isn’t as easy as it is on Android. You will have to sign out of one account and temporarily “disable syncing” for it before signing in to another. To be honest, this process is a headache and not as easy as setting up and switching between multiple Chrome profiles / Google accounts on your desktop.
Instead, I might recommend opening your password manager when you’re signed into your work account in Chrome. Click on the gear icon and click on “Export Passwords”, after which they should all be dumped to the desktop as a .CSV file.
From there, log out of your work account and log into your personal account in Chrome – on a desktop or laptop – and type this into the address bar: chrome://flags/#PasswordImport
You should see a screen that looks something like this as soon as you hit Enter:
Enable this flag, restart your browser and open Chrome settings by clicking the three-dot icon in the upper right corner and selecting Settings. Click on Passwords under AutoComplete and then click on the triple dot next to Saved Passwords to open a new Import option, as shown here:
You will then be able to download the .CSV file with all of your work passwords previously saved in the instance of Chrome that you linked to your personal account. Now click on “You and Google” in the upper left corner and select “Manage sync” to confirm that your passwords will sync wherever you are logged into Chrome using your personal account.
You should now be able to request your work passwords on your “home” version of Chrome, that is, on your iPhone or iPad if the latter is also syncing passwords from your Chrome account (which you can check in the Chrome app’s settings menu on each device).
Honestly, you can just grab a bite and move all your passwords to a strong password manager . This way, you can access them no matter what accounts you use on any device. This process will be completely independent and you will have your passwords whenever you have password manager apps installed. It is so simple; No more messing with Chrome accounts and stuff.
At least I would do that. In fact, this is what I’m doing right now to manage the passwords I use for Lifehacker and the passwords I use for everything else: I dump them all in 1Password and let the app manage my logins no matter what device or the browser instance I am using. I highly recommend this; a reliable password manager is worth every bit, what about $ 35 will you pay every year to use it? That’s less than half the cost of a coffee bougie per month, and the joy will last much longer.