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Wednesday, 20 November 2019

The best password managers for 2019 and how to use them


Ditch the sticky notes and get peace of mind. Our favorite password managers will be your first defense against getting hacked.

No more struggling to come up with clever, cryptic passwords that you have a hard time remembering. With a secure and easy-to-use password manager, you can manage your login credentials across all your devices, keeping your passwords secure, automatically filling in forms, and syncing your data across MacOS, Windows, Android phones, iPads, iPhones and more.


A password manager is essentially an encrypted digital vault that stores the login information you use to access apps, websites and other services. 

Besides keeping your identity, credentials and sensitive data safe, a password manager can generate strong, unique passwords to ensure you aren't reusing them across your devices and services.  

With all the recent news of security breaches and identity theft, using unique passwords can go a long way to ensuring that if one site gets hacked, your stolen password can't be used on other sites.

Plus, with a manager, you don't have to remember the various pieces of login information, such as credit-card information or shipping addresses.

With just one master password or in some cases a PIN or even your fingerprint you can autofill a form or password field. Some also feature online storage and an encrypted vault for storing documents. 

All our best password manager picks come in free versions, which typically let you securely store passwords for one device (although our pick for best free manager can be used across multiple devices).

Our best password manager picks also feature subscription options that let you sync your log-in information across all your devices, get access to secure online storage, and share credentials with trusted family and friends.

And if transparency is important to you, several of our picks are open-source projects. We also look at what a password manager is and the basics of how to use one.
Note that these services are independently chosen by our editors.