Back in August, Google was spotted making progress onadding a password sharing option to Chrome. Fast forward a few months, and the feature is live in one of the latestChrome releases, Canary 121. With the right flags enabled, you’re able to share credentials stored in your Google Password Manager with other members of your Google family group.
The feature is not yet activated by default. You have to enable thechrome://flags/#password-sharingflag to get started. This needs to be done on your browser and the one your family member uses. Once that’s done, a newSharebutton is visible in all the entries saved to Google Password Manager. Clicking it reveals a list of your family group members, with those who don’t have the flag enabled grayed out and unavailable. When you select a contact, a banner appears that shows you that the transfer is in progress. It’s followed by a note that the password was successfully shared, along with instructions to tell your family member to visit the website in question to sign in. This was first spotted and detailed by@Leopeva64 on X(formerly Twitter).
The steps the sender has to go through to share a password
On the receiving end, the new password will show up in the family member’s existing Google Password Manager. There is currently no way to tell the new entry apart from others, and there doesn’t seem to be a proactive notification or email that a new password has been added. When the family member visits the site the password was shared for, they will see a tooltip telling them that they can now log in with the new credentials, though.
There are some more things to consider when sharing passwords with family members. Sharing a password is a one-time action, so you may’t change the password on your end and have it automatically updated on their end, too. There doesn’t appear to be a way to revoke a shared password, either. Family members can make tweaks to the shared password on their end, adding their own notes or changing the password and/or user name without it being reflected in the original entry. If you want to share multiple passwords, you need to repeat the action for every single one.
What shared passwords look like on the receiver’s end
Compared to othergood password managers, this makes Google’s method one of the least comfortable. For example, 1Password lets you share complete vaults (or folders) with other family members, instantly giving them access to every account you want to share. 1Password also lets you securely share credentials with anyone, regardless of whether they use the manager or not.
Google’s approach is still a step in the right direction, and it has been a long time coming — some evidence was spotted all the way back in February 2022. Secure credential sharing options will become increasingly important aspasskeysare getting wider adoption. In contrast to passwords, passkeys can’t easily be shared in plain text, so having secure and simple ways to share items with other people in place will be crucial for this use case going forward.
