Disable your browser-based password manager
Browsers have come a long way in the last decade. One feature that is common to many of them, including most of the browsers supported by Bitwarden, is their ability to store and manage passwords alongside your cookies and browsing history.
In the beginning, this was a handy way to be better at passwords. As time went on, the advantages of cross-platform, zero-knowledge encryption password managers became more evident.
Most browsers have their password managers enabled by default. We’ll walk through how to quickly disable this feature in order to make the switch to using Bitwarden a lot smoother, as you now have one system of record for your credentials.
If you already have passwords in your browsers, you can export them easily and import them directly into your Bitwarden Vault. For more information about importing your credentials, please visit our help article here: Import your data from another application
Of course, browsers and their UI change over time, and in the event that this article has out-of-date instructions, we’ve also included links to the Browser’s official help page to make this article a one-stop solution!
We’ll take a look at the steps to disable your browser's ability to store passwords for browsers that Bitwarden currently supports.
Chrome's manager settings are in the Preferences > Autofill > Passwords menu - easy!
Firefox is similar, under Preferences > Privacy and Security > Logins and Passwords we can uncheck the options.
In Edge, we’ll take a quick trip into Preferences > Profiles and Passwords, turning the slider to the “off” position.
Safari uses iCloud keychain, which is a larger item that can be disabled - we encourage users to do the research on what items are kept there and how they are used. But, for the purposes of this article, disabling auto-fill is all we need to do. You may also want to visit the Preferences > Passwords section of Safari to clean up and migrate any passwords that may have found their way into your keychain.
Opera is straightforward also, under Preferences > Autofill > Passwords you’ll find a similar menu.
The Brave browser is also under the Preferences > Autofill > Passwords section. Based on Chromium, it shares the same look and options as Chrome.
To disable password storage and prompts in Vivaldi, you’d go into Preferences > Privacy and uncheck “Save Webpage Passwords.”
While Tor may share its roots with some of the browsers here - the fact that it comes in permanent private browsing mode is great! Out of the box, there is nothing to do here. But, if by chance you changed this, you can undo it by going to Preferences > Privacy and Security and uncheck the box for saving logins and passwords!
Now that your browser isn’t saving anything, it will be much easier to keep track of the items that you may need to add or update in your Bitwarden Vault.
It’s a good feeling knowing that your most important credentials are safe and sound, and centrally located in a cross-platform solution.
Safe browsing!
Editor's Note: This article was originally written on April 6th, 2020 and was updated on March 15th, 2024.