Passwords permeate our lives. With an ever-increasing number of sites, services and applications to connect to, users need help generating, managing and accessing them. There are some great third-party apps that can help you, but the reality is that most people won’t download a third-party app, let alone are likely to pay for one. That’s why Apple’s work with passwords is so important.
However, what makes this work impressive is the company’s efforts to make password best practices easier for users. Password updates to iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma are fantastic examples, making it easier than ever to share passwords and allowing users to start adopting passwords as a method of authentication superior compared to traditional passwords.
Shared passwords
Shared passwords are the most important new security feature in iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma. Apple’s work with passwords has come a long way in recent years, but until now, sharing passwords has been a one-off thing. However, with this year’s operating system updates, users will be able to share full sets of passwords with friends, family, and other trusted users. This is a big deal because in previous versions of the operating system, this limitation was one of the most common reasons why many of our readers still use a third-party password manager.
The first time you open the Passwords tab in Safari on macOS or the Passwords section of the iOS and iPadOS Settings app or the Mac’s System Settings, you’ll see a new option at the top of your list of passwords. password saying ‘Share passwords with Family.’ This message may lead you to think that password sharing is limited to an iCloud Family Sharing group, but that is not the case. They can be shared with anyone you trust, whether or not they’re in your iCloud sharing group.
I’ve started creating a shared password group for my family, but so far it’s limited to me and my son, who is also running the macOS Sonoma beta. You will also discover during the setup process that shared passwords will only be accessible from devices running the latest operating systems. This can be frustrating for anyone who is an early adopter of the operating system in their family or other password-sharing group, but it’s a good reason to encourage your family and other contacts to update their devices.
After adding someone, you can search your passwords and select which ones you want to share. The final step is to notify the person you are sharing your passwords with that they have been shared. Later, if you want to edit a group, you can reopen the group, where you will see an option to manage its members. From here, you can add new members, remove people from a group, or delete a group entirely. It’s also worth noting that if you delete a group, your passwords are not deleted. Instead, they are placed back in My Passwords, which serves as the default password group.
As the creator of a shared password list, you have sole control over adding and removing members from the group, but once a member of a group, each member can add and remove any what password, whoever originally added it. Additionally, passwords only live in one group at a time. For example, if I want to share my Hulu password with my family, adding it to my family password group removes it from the “My Passwords” section. If you want a password to reside in two places, you will need to create a second password entry as if it were a completely new password.
You might wonder if passwords residing in the same place make it difficult to find them when you don’t remember which list they’re in, but in practice, that’s not the case. The main Passwords view includes a search box that searches for all your passwords. Those that are shared will appear in search results with a small “two-way” share icon indicating that they are part of a shared list. You can also search individual lists, so I haven’t found it any more difficult to find passwords than in the past.
Passwords are also easy to move. When you open the detail view of a password, you will see a “Group” field that can be used to move a password to one of your groups. You can even create a new group from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, you can access the same menu by long-pressing a password on iOS 17 or iPadOS 17 or right-clicking a password on macOS Sonoma. Another way to move passwords is to use the “plus” button. The context menu it displays has a “Move Passwords to Group” option that shows all your passwords in other groups so you can move them to the current group.
One of the special features of moving passwords is that only the group owner can move them. I call this a quirk because any member of a group can delete a password, eliminating access to it for everyone, including the person who created the list. Removing a password from a shared group would have the same effect as deleting it on other members, but this is not possible. It’s a strange limitation but problematic enough that I wouldn’t expect it to be a problem in most circumstances.
In my testing, creating lists of shared passwords was easy, and I think it will be more than enough to meet the needs of many families, roommates, and other groups of trusted contacts. This may also be sufficient for some small businesses, but when setting up a shared password list with Federico, I immediately missed the password categories I set up in 1Password. Apple’s shared passwords also don’t include the ability to set permission levels or attach documents, which is possible with third-party password managers. You can get around these limitations by using separate lists and password-protected notes in the Notes app, but it’s more tedious than a third-party app if these features are important to you.
Until very recently, my use of shared password groups was limited because not all of my devices were equipped with the latest operating system and few people around me were running beta versions. Nonetheless, I plan to move the handful of passwords shared by my family to the Apple system. Apple’s system may not be the best solution for shared MacStories passwords, but I think it will be much easier than convincing family members to download and learn a third-party app.
Apple ID Access Keys
iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma automatically generate a password for your Apple ID. Access keys, based on a cross-platform web standard, are a way to replace traditional passwords with biometric authentication methods on your devices. For Mac, that means the Touch ID sensor. For iPhone and iPad, this could be Touch ID or Face ID, depending on the device. Your passwords sync across all your Apple devices using iCloud Keychain, allowing you to use these biometric authentication methods to sign in with your Apple ID on every device you own.
Passkeys have been available for the icloud.com and apple.com sites for anyone running macOS Sonoma, iOS 17, or iPadOS 17 since shortly after WWDC, so I’ve been using my Apple ID passkey all the time. summer. The best part about passwords is that when they are enabled, you quickly forget them because they are available on all your devices and use the same authentication methods you are already used to to unlock your devices, but they are more secure than passwords. It will be years before most apps and websites support passwords, but I’ve already seen them implemented for a handful of websites I use, like CVS, the pharmacy my family uses, Shop by Shopify and Tailscale.
It’s high time to create an Apple password app
When you look at where Apple’s support for password management stands today, the question we and others have been asking for several years at MacStories is more relevant than ever:
Why isn’t there a separate system app for passwords?
Apple is doing a better job than ever of making passwords appear system-wide, but users still have to dig into Settings too often.
Settings on iOS and iPadOS and system settings on Mac need a deeper overhaul than the kind of design refresh we saw in macOS Ventura. There’s too much going on in both Settings apps, and removing passwords and making it a standalone app would be a great way to reduce the complexity of these apps.
Passwords never fit well with settings anyway. In my opinion, a password app is more like a specialized note-taking app than a settings app. Password management does not directly impact the operating system in the same way as switching from light to dark mode or turning off notifications. With the password features of Apple’s operating systems now so competitive with standalone password apps, I hope we see them integrated into a separate app in OS updates of next year.
Year after year, Apple has improved the way passwords are managed on our devices, and this year is no different. Shared passwords will make sharing between family members and other trusted groups much more manageable than before. Generating Apple ID passkeys should also help drive adoption of passkeys, once users realize how convenient they are and begin to wonder why more sites and services don’t do not yet support them. I’d like to see Apple’s password features integrated into their own app, but that doesn’t take away from the great work that’s been done to make generating, managing, and accessing passwords more easier than ever on all Apple operating systems.
Related posts
Passwords permeate our lives. With an ever-increasing number of sites, services and applications to connect to, users need help generating, managing and accessing them. There are some great third-party apps that can help you, but the reality is that most people won’t download a third-party app, let alone are likely to pay for one. That’s why Apple’s work with passwords is so important.
However, what makes this work impressive is the company’s efforts to make password best practices easier for users. Password updates to iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma are fantastic examples, making it easier than ever to share passwords and allowing users to start adopting passwords as a method of authentication superior compared to traditional passwords.
Shared passwords
Shared passwords are the most important new security feature in iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma. Apple’s work with passwords has come a long way in recent years, but until now, sharing passwords has been a one-off thing. However, with this year’s operating system updates, users will be able to share full sets of passwords with friends, family, and other trusted users. This is a big deal because in previous versions of the operating system, this limitation was one of the most common reasons why many of our readers still use a third-party password manager.
The first time you open the Passwords tab in Safari on macOS or the Passwords section of the iOS and iPadOS Settings app or the Mac’s System Settings, you’ll see a new option at the top of your list of passwords. password saying ‘Share passwords with Family.’ This message may lead you to think that password sharing is limited to an iCloud Family Sharing group, but that is not the case. They can be shared with anyone you trust, whether or not they’re in your iCloud sharing group.
I’ve started creating a shared password group for my family, but so far it’s limited to me and my son, who is also running the macOS Sonoma beta. You will also discover during the setup process that shared passwords will only be accessible from devices running the latest operating systems. This can be frustrating for anyone who is an early adopter of the operating system in their family or other password-sharing group, but it’s a good reason to encourage your family and other contacts to update their devices.
After adding someone, you can search your passwords and select which ones you want to share. The final step is to notify the person you are sharing your passwords with that they have been shared. Later, if you want to edit a group, you can reopen the group, where you will see an option to manage its members. From here, you can add new members, remove people from a group, or delete a group entirely. It’s also worth noting that if you delete a group, your passwords are not deleted. Instead, they are placed back in My Passwords, which serves as the default password group.
As the creator of a shared password list, you have sole control over adding and removing members from the group, but once a member of a group, each member can add and remove any what password, whoever originally added it. Additionally, passwords only live in one group at a time. For example, if I want to share my Hulu password with my family, adding it to my family password group removes it from the “My Passwords” section. If you want a password to reside in two places, you will need to create a second password entry as if it were a completely new password.
You might wonder if passwords residing in the same place make it difficult to find them when you don’t remember which list they’re in, but in practice, that’s not the case. The main Passwords view includes a search box that searches for all your passwords. Those that are shared will appear in search results with a small “two-way” share icon indicating that they are part of a shared list. You can also search individual lists, so I haven’t found it any more difficult to find passwords than in the past.
Passwords are also easy to move. When you open the detail view of a password, you will see a “Group” field that can be used to move a password to one of your groups. You can even create a new group from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, you can access the same menu by long-pressing a password on iOS 17 or iPadOS 17 or right-clicking a password on macOS Sonoma. Another way to move passwords is to use the “plus” button. The context menu it displays has a “Move Passwords to Group” option that shows all your passwords in other groups so you can move them to the current group.
One of the special features of moving passwords is that only the group owner can move them. I call this a quirk because any member of a group can delete a password, eliminating access to it for everyone, including the person who created the list. Removing a password from a shared group would have the same effect as deleting it on other members, but this is not possible. It’s a strange limitation but problematic enough that I wouldn’t expect it to be a problem in most circumstances.
In my testing, creating lists of shared passwords was easy, and I think it will be more than enough to meet the needs of many families, roommates, and other groups of trusted contacts. This may also be sufficient for some small businesses, but when setting up a shared password list with Federico, I immediately missed the password categories I set up in 1Password. Apple’s shared passwords also don’t include the ability to set permission levels or attach documents, which is possible with third-party password managers. You can get around these limitations by using separate lists and password-protected notes in the Notes app, but it’s more tedious than a third-party app if these features are important to you.
Until very recently, my use of shared password groups was limited because not all of my devices were equipped with the latest operating system and few people around me were running beta versions. Nonetheless, I plan to move the handful of passwords shared by my family to the Apple system. Apple’s system may not be the best solution for shared MacStories passwords, but I think it will be much easier than convincing family members to download and learn a third-party app.
Apple ID Access Keys
iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma automatically generate a password for your Apple ID. Access keys, based on a cross-platform web standard, are a way to replace traditional passwords with biometric authentication methods on your devices. For Mac, that means the Touch ID sensor. For iPhone and iPad, this could be Touch ID or Face ID, depending on the device. Your passwords sync across all your Apple devices using iCloud Keychain, allowing you to use these biometric authentication methods to sign in with your Apple ID on every device you own.
Passkeys have been available for the icloud.com and apple.com sites for anyone running macOS Sonoma, iOS 17, or iPadOS 17 since shortly after WWDC, so I’ve been using my Apple ID passkey all the time. summer. The best part about passwords is that when they are enabled, you quickly forget them because they are available on all your devices and use the same authentication methods you are already used to to unlock your devices, but they are more secure than passwords. It will be years before most apps and websites support passwords, but I’ve already seen them implemented for a handful of websites I use, like CVS, the pharmacy my family uses, Shop by Shopify and Tailscale.
It’s high time to create an Apple password app
When you look at where Apple’s support for password management stands today, the question we and others have been asking for several years at MacStories is more relevant than ever:
Why isn’t there a separate system app for passwords?
Apple is doing a better job than ever of making passwords appear system-wide, but users still have to dig into Settings too often.
Settings on iOS and iPadOS and system settings on Mac need a deeper overhaul than the kind of design refresh we saw in macOS Ventura. There’s too much going on in both Settings apps, and removing passwords and making it a standalone app would be a great way to reduce the complexity of these apps.
Passwords never fit well with settings anyway. In my opinion, a password app is more like a specialized note-taking app than a settings app. Password management does not directly impact the operating system in the same way as switching from light to dark mode or turning off notifications. With the password features of Apple’s operating systems now so competitive with standalone password apps, I hope we see them integrated into a separate app in OS updates of next year.
Year after year, Apple has improved the way passwords are managed on our devices, and this year is no different. Shared passwords will make sharing between family members and other trusted groups much more manageable than before. Generating Apple ID passkeys should also help drive adoption of passkeys, once users realize how convenient they are and begin to wonder why more sites and services don’t do not yet support them. I’d like to see Apple’s password features integrated into their own app, but that doesn’t take away from the great work that’s been done to make generating, managing, and accessing passwords more easier than ever on all Apple operating systems.
