Access passwords from all your devices

Image credit: Getty Images

Competition is fierce among password managers, as they vie for your subscription. As a result, most have near-identical core features, including auto-fill support for a range of browsers from Safari to Chrome, and time-based one-time passcodes (TOTP) as used in two-factor authentication (2FA). In addition to web login passwords, most support encrypted storage of payment cards and other secrets. They also use biometric security, including Touch ID on Apple silicon Macs, and Touch ID or Face ID on mobile devices.

They differ more in who looks after your secrets. Most keep your vault in their cloud, making you dependent on their security protection; a few like Strongbox give you the choice of storage, a feature that was widely used in older versions of 1Password. Although they all try to make migration easy, and can import your existing passwords from iCloud Keychain, that currently isn’t possible for passkeys, as their support is being introduced. Here’s our choice of the best of today’s password managers.

How we tested

We installed these password managers on a Mac Studio, iPad Pro and iPhone, each running their current system release. We set them up by importing a CSV file we had exported from iCloud Keychain via Passwords settings, added some of their custom types, and edited them. Products were assessed for ease of use on each platform, security against tests reported for a product intended to brute-force their master passwords, and browser auto-fill in Safari.