Google is testing a new feature in Chrome to address an issue where some saved passwords become inaccessible after a macOS password reset. This can cause inconvenience to users who rely on Chrome’s password manager to store and manage their login details for various websites.
First, some background on this issue. Chrome uses encryption to protect saved passwords, preventing unauthorized access even if someone gains access to your device. But these encryption keys can change for various reasons, including updates or password reset.
When a Mac user password is reset, it can impact Chrome’s ability to decrypt previously saved passwords, rendering them unusable. This comes after a member of our team noticed that Chrome users on iOS can directly save files to Google Drive or Google Photos from the web.
The authors of this issue observed that after resetting a Mac password, Chrome would prompt users to save their passwords in the password manager, but these saved passwords would not persist after restarting the browser .
Google acknowledges that this is intended behavior of Chrome on macOS. They confirmed that the problem also exists on Windows through their testing. To solve this problem, Google is developing a solution that automatically clears passwords that cannot be cracked using the current encryption key.
This would allow the password manager to work as expected and users would not encounter issues with inaccessible passwords after resetting passwords.
The new feature could first be introduced on an experimental basis on the chrome://flags
page. This is a section of Chrome where users can enable or disable experimental features. If enabled, this feature will automatically remove uncrackable passwords and restore full functionality of the password manager.
This feature is designed to benefit Chrome users across all platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and Chrome OS. By automatically clearing uncrackable passwords, Google can prevent users from having problems with their saved passwords after resetting the password on any device.
This should improve the overall reliability and functionality of password management in Chrome.