We were out and my mom needed to download an app for something she bought. The App Store asked for her password instead of FaceID (not sure why). She didn’t remember it and that led to a big hullabaloo*. Then we needed to get passwords for other sites. She pulled out a small black book with scratch outs and the same password used multiple times. I told her “if someone gets a hold of that book…”
What’s the best password manager for someone who’s not that tech savvy? She only has an iPhone and iPad for computing devices.
I thought about iOS’s password manager, but this is open to anyone who gets the device code. She’ll never use 1password, BitWarden, etc. It’s too much additional work.
Anyone ever solve this problem?
*Hullabaloo = with stolen device protection on, we couldn’t change her password without waiting the hour lockout. Even when we got back to her home (trusted location), the option to have trusted locations wasn’t listed in Settings > Stolen Device Protection.
I actually went through this with my mom—the whole routine with the book of passwords, frustration, resistance, and so on. I set up 1Password on all of her devices and provided tech support. At first, she found it to be a hassle; but after a few weeks, she came to love it and is always thanking me for setting it up.
The only catch is that I wouldn’t dare switch to another app now that I have other family members using it. There’s been some warranted critiques of 1Password on this forum in the past year or two, but I wouldn’t switch unless it was absolutely necessary given how I have set up family with it. So, whatever you chose to do, keep in mind you may have one opportunity with this.
A hard lesson I have learned — the best password manager is that book, just left at home.
Because the real secret to getting someone to use a digital password manager… is they have to want to. I honestly believe it’s that simple. Sure, I wouldn’t foist KeePass on a neophyte, but any of the popular ones are fine if they care to use it. If they don’t care, none of them will be successful.
Depending on her threat model, and what passwords are in there, even a locked note in Notes would be more secure than that little black book. Set up a locked note in Notes for her to store passwords in, make sure that it uses a separate password to unlock (and not the iPhone passcode – that’s in Settings) and make her remember that one. Make sure you also know her password for this note.
It’s not ideal, and will not fill in passwords for her automatically, but if she’s used to looking things up anyway and retyping them, that might not be much of an issue for her. I’d generally not recommend this for security reasons but let’s say we trust Apple’s encryption enough here.
With older people you often have to balance security with convenience and what they can be taught to use. There’s still greater risk of her losing that book than someone getting access to her locked iPhone and then guessing an additional passcode for a locked note.
Thanks for the suggestions. Right now I ended up going with the locked note and different password. It also offers a hint.
Apple’s Password manager is getting pretty good but I don’t like the fact that it uses the same password as the phone. Given the recent reporting of how easy it is get access to someone’s entire life with their phone and passcode, I’m wary of putting things in there. I set up Stolen Device Protection on all the phones I can touch, but this ended up being problematic when I had to trade-in my daughter’s phone or when my mom couldn’t remember her Apple ID password.
No perfect solution exists yet, but as a decades long user of 1password, I think Apple’s solution is getting pretty close.
BTW: I discovered Mac Power Users when David Teare sent out free copies of the Paperless field guide to 1password users.
I am currently going through this with my parents but the “little black book” is a stack of unintelligible sheets of notebook paper. They don’t even know which version of most of their passwords is correct.
My goal is to give them one of my Family seats in 1Password, sit down with them, and add all the important passwords there.
I won’t be turning on auto-login as it’s too advanced for them. However, the way I see it, using 1Password will provide them with a neat, secure, and organized place to store their passwords.
I helped setup my parents on 1password about 5 years ago when 1password family started rolling out.
I sat with them for some time to get them used to the flow. Basically any website that they used they would type their old password and then have 1p create the new one. It helped them to understand the flow and I could see how they used the program.
It’s amazing how much more secure it is because of the complex and non re-used passwords. With the family valut, then they can share passwords to the family easily and share passwords between themselves.
A side benefit now is that important documents are shared among the family.
I like that 1password is available on Windows and Macs and there’s a website if you needed to access it without your device.
It’s great if you can get your parents to use a new app and understand the benefits and the workflows but sometimes this just does not work. I just recently upgraded my mom from a ten-year old Nokia Lumia (running Windows Phone – if anyone remembers that) that she absolutely loved to my ‘old’ but still perfectly good iPhone 13 and every new app thrown into the mix just creates more complexity and is an issue. I have spent quite some time to optimise the iPhone to disable any notifications, tips, reminders, or whatever, that might confuse her or cause an issue. I am now close to the perfect setup for her, at which point I’m hiding and locking down everything past the first home screen etc.
My mom doesn’t know how to control-click on the trackpad or use keyboard shortcuts. She’s been selecting text and mousing up to Edit > Copy for decades at this point, and any attempts to show her other methods bounce right off.
She also loves 1Password. Took me about an hour to set things up on her devices a couple years ago, and a few more weeks of troubleshooting after that, but it’s been smooth sailing ever since.
Rather than fussing with autofill, she just opens up 1Password and uses the in-app browser to sign into whatever account she needs to—it’s basically a password/bookmarks manager combo for her.
It’s not perfect, but lightyears ahead of the dozen or so variations of her password she used to keep tacking punctuation onto whenever she was prompted to update it.
I had exactly the same issue with my Mum. She was using a book and got completely confused about which password to use.
About two years ago, I decided during Christmas vacation to get her set up with 1Password, and I installed it for both my parents (she is 78 and my father 83). I’ve not had another call about passwords since!
Since then, I have received at least one monthly thank you for it. She now stores everything she can in 1Password and says it is like a miracle for her. The last time she thanked me was last week when she needed social security information, which normally she would have had to find in a shoebox with hundreds of other letters! There were no issues with usability; she managed to work everything out herself.
Is the black book really that insecure? Since most hacks are done from some basement in Russia an offline list of passwords might be more secure. No way to hack the list without having physical access to the book.
