Despite the many security concerns, it is quite safe to say that saving your passwords in your browser helps a lot. This action makes the life simpler. If you are using Google Chrome as your primary browser, saving all your passwords to your Google account will give you easy access to all your passwords in a single place.
What’s best is that you can access all your passwords from any device. The only thing you need to remember is your Google account credentials, and log into your Chrome browser using the user ID and password for your Google account.
The thing to note here is that using Google account for saving and managing your passwords will make your passwords accessible through every device. You may be using Windows, Mac, Linux or Chromebook. It doesn’t matter. If you log into your Google account through the Google Chrome browser, you will have access.
What you do need to take care of is that you manage your passwords efficiently. It happens to everyone – ‘we keep changing our passwords from time to time.’
This means that if you keep saving the different passwords for the same service again and again, there are high chances that Google Chrome will autofill the old password. This can be frustrating.
That’s where managing your passwords saved in Google Chrome becomes important!
Google Chrome has the ability, or rather the functionality that you can use for managing your passwords.
But before you can do that, you need to enable the functionality of saving your passwords in Google Chrome.
The thing is, this feature is enabled by default. In case it is not available for you, you might have accidentally disabled the service. Don’t worry, you can re-enable it.
Let’s find out how to enable it again.
How to Save Passwords in Google Chrome?
The first thing you need to do is sign into your Google account using Google Chrome. You can do that after you install the Chrome browser.
After you have installed the browser and signed into your Google account, you will notice your profile appearing in the top right-hand corner of the browser window. This is what you will see:
The yellow highlighted box on the top is your profile. The same thing can be seen below. However, the one you see below is meant for adding additional Google accounts. The option for enabling password saving, payment info, etc. is available only on the first option.
Click on it and you will notice this:
You will notice a small key icon. That is the option for the password settings. In the image above, I have highlighted the option with a red circle.
Click on that icon to pull up the settings for passwords.
This is the screen you will see when you click on that key icon:
On the left you can see the menu, and notice that Autofill is selected. That’s the page for all the settings for autofill.
On the right side you will notice the option which says, ‘Offer to save passwords.’ There is a toggle switch next to it. If it is turned off, turn it on by clicking on the toggle switch.
That’s it!
You have successfully enabled the option for saving passwords.
Now when you login to any website, Google Chrome will show a popup notification on the top right corner, offering you to save the password.
Okay, now that you have learned how to save passwords in Google Chrome, you need to know how to manage those passwords.
Let’s quickly learn that as well.
How to Manage Saved Passwords in Google Chrome?
You need to be on the same settings page (where you enable saving passwords) to manage the passwords you have saved.
You will see the option which says, ‘View and manage saved passwords in your Google Account.’
Here is a closer view:
The highlighted red box shows the option. Click on the link (anchor text Google Account), and you will be taken to a new page where it will list all the passwords you have saved into your Google Account.
Honestly, you don’t even have to click on that. You will see a quick list of saved passwords right underneath that section on the very same page.
Right next to each website and login credentials, you can see a vertical ellipsis menu (three dots).
Clicking on that will reveal the options of copying editing or removing the passwords.
However, if you want more granular control, you can go ahead and click on the option which says, ‘View and manage saved passwords in your Google Account.’ This will take you to a new page where you can see the list of all websites for which you have saved the login credentials.
Once you click on any website, Google will ask you to login again. That’s a security protocol put in place by Google.
Once you login, you will see the option for editing and managing the password specific to the site you clicked on.
This is where you can edit or delete the password. If you are seeing the old password for the site, simply click on the edit button, and then save the new password you have set for the site in the popup box that appears.
That’s it!
You have successfully managed your password!
Wasn’t that simple?
Word of Advice
Google may have incredible security measures in place. So, the passwords you save in your Google account may be safe.
The question is, how secure is your computer?
Hackers can hack your computer and get access to your Google account that will immediately give them access to all the passwords you have saved in your Google account.
There are many ways hackers can do that. One easy way is phishing, but they can resort to methods like installing malware from different sites (like torrent sites) that can steal your information, log your keystrokes, and much more!
So, I usually do not recommend saving passwords with Google account through Google Chrome. I don’t recommend doing that with any other browser.
However, if you do that, make sure you have a very powerful antivirus and malware scanner in place (Kaspersky is a good choice).
The wisest thing you can do is keep your passwords offline, and use an onscreen keyboard to key in your passwords. This might sound ridiculous, but it will keep you protected. At one point, you will appreciate all the efforts you put in.
