How to use the Bitwarden built-in password history tool

If you've recently created a new vault entry in Bitwarden and saved it, that new entry is likely crucial to your job or the new service you've just signed up with.  What should you do if, when you go to log in, you can't remember what you named the entry in Bitwarden or, for whatever reason, you cannot find the entry.

Many users secure hundreds of entries in their Bitwarden vault, so scrolling through the entire list isn’t practical, and neither is creating a new account and starting from scratch. 

Thankfully, there's another option - the Bitwarden password history tool. This feature offers exactly what it sounds like, a secure way to see the recent passwords you have generated in Bitwarden. This also comes in handy if you generate a password for a new entry and accidentally close it without saving. If you know that was the most recent password you generated, you can easily find it again using this tool.

Now, let's find out how to access that history feature. This blog will walk you through how to use this feature on the desktop application, but you can access the password history tool from the browser extension, mobile app, and web vault as well. 

To install the desktop client, make sure to download the installer for your operating system from the official Bitwarden download page and walk through the installation process. Another piece of good news is that this feature is found on all versions of the desktop client, which means Linux, macOS, and Windows.

And now, how to access that history.

Open the Bitwarden desktop client and then click the View menu entry. From there click, Password History (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The Bitwarden File menu

From the Bitwarden Password History popup (Figure 2), you should see a long list of passwords that have been saved to the clipboard.

Figure 2: The Bitwarden Password History list

If the password you’re looking for was the last one you generated, all you have to do is click the copy button associated with the entry and you're good to go.

What if you don't want to keep that history intact? At the bottom of the Password History popup is a trash can icon (Figure 3). Click that icon to clean out your history.

Figure 3: Clearing your password history is but a click away

And there you go, you've used the Bitwarden password history tool to save yourself some extra work and also learned how to clear your history.

If you primarily use Bitwarden via the mobile app, you can access the password history feature by tapping on the Generator tab, tapping the three-dot menu in the upper right corner, and then tapping Password History.

If you use the web vault UI, to access the password history go to Generator and then click the small clock icon in the lower right corner of the window.

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