✅ Account Switching

Congrats to the team on achieving this major milestone in making BW now really ready for systematic use across multiple work environments and for easily switching between work and personal vaults.

Looking forward to similar implementation within the Browser extension!

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It seems, that account Switching doesn´t work if the Accounts are on different Servers (selfhosted for work, regular Bitwarden for private). Is this intended?

Hi @bokkabonga,

Account switching does support both SaaS cloud users, and self-hosted instances to be connected and switched between with the desktop app with the new feature. Please see

If you appear to be having issues connecting your self-hosted account to utilize this account switching feature then the self-hosted instance may not be running the official installation and instead be running the 3rd party unofficial fork known as Vaultwarden.
This has been a known issue and tends to give an error “Logged out Your login session has expired.”

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Hi there, is it possible to hide this part of the window chrome entirely? I’m losing 41px of vertical space to a bar with features in it I’ll never use - namely, I will only ever log into one vault. It would be great to be able to hide this bar and gain my screen real estate back. I have checked the documentation (Link) but I can’t find anything that answers my question. Thank you

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Hey @cksapp ,

thanks for further explaining this. However it seems, that when adding two accounts on two different self-hosted servers, that only one is saved. I can add anSaaS account and a selfhosted account without problems. But adding two selfhosted accounts on different servers (which requieres to change Server URL), will allways remove the account that was added first.

Sorry to hear you are having issues with the account switching feature in Desktop with self-hosted instances @bokkabonga

You specify you are trying to switch between multiple self-hosted URLs, meaning you have several Bitwarden servers each with their own URL you try to switch between accounts with.
ie possibly multiple companies’ self-hosted servers with Bitwarden; bw.company1.com VS bw.company2.com
When signed in to an account with Company1 and use account switching to change to the account logged into Company2, the original self-hosted account with Company1 will get logged out?

I am aware of a similar issue regarding the new account switching feature that is present in the 3rd party unofficial server fork known as Vaultwarden, but as I know this currently does work with self-hosted servers with the official release so long as you are up to date.
Do you know if you are running the Bitwarden docker with the install script on your server? Or may you possibly be using Vaultwarden instead for the self-hosted service?

(Note: Not the OP, and I am using vaultwarden.)

I actually saw something slightly weird when I set up multiple accounts using the desktop client for the switching (on linux) - BUT, it worked fine. I think what I found was - I needed to log out to set up the additional accounts, but not 100% certain.

i.e. set server, log in, log out, set server 2, log in, log out, set server 3, log in, log out

I currently have it connected to three different vaultwarden instances without any issue other than it being a little weird when I first did the logins.

Account switching has been added to the Android app with version 2.17.0 !!

I can finally get rid of my outdated secondary pw manager app and just use Bitwarden.
This is a serious QoL improvement for me and very much appreciated.

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I don’t think the current implementation is useful without the unified experience mentioned in the release blog FAQ that might get implemented depending on community feedback.

I don’t always remember which account has login for what site and I’ll probably have to keep switching accounts after realizing the auto fill shows nothing multiple times a day which feels very cumbersome.

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same request here. have personal and work account. Both are paid.
Need to switch between accounts easily.

Need this feature on desktop (firefox browser / ubuntu 20)

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+1 for “unified experience” as an option.

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Loving the switcher availability! Can’t wait to see it on Browser Extensions.
Just as some quick feedback regarding the release to Android, it would be great to have the account switcher available in the Autofill selection screen too.
Otherwise you have to back out of the app you’re currently using, go into BitWarden, switch accounts, then go back to the app you were using to be able to autofill.

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Would be great to have the account switch option in the browser plugin’s as we’ve multiple laptops which are used by people leveraging their own Bitwarden safe. While the safe is locked, for me it’s easy to logoff and login again, but this kind of thing seems “hard” for my family, who keep making the mistake trying to logon on eachother’s locked safe.

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The implementation of Account Switching is interesting. We struggle to get users to user Bitwarden and so adding additional layers of complexity doesn’t help.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to give users the ability to have a personal and work email attached to an account, similar to e.g. Facebook?

I know that presents a security risk but surely there is a way to default new items to the ‘work’ component of the account so those items don’t leave with the staff member if they leave the company.

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Will the account switching feature be available as a browser extension too, or it is only a feature for desktop and mobile apps?

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Hi Murz, Account switching will be available in the browser extension too and is planned soon. Stay tuned!

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I really regret the day I migrated our company from lastpass to bitwarden. The 30 seconds it takes me 4-5 times a day to switch has litterally cost me hours and a huge amount of frustration… and still hasnt been delivered two years after it was promised.

hi @mofman, account switching is here on desktop and mobile and is coming up next in the browser extension this summer. perhaps it is possible to use a 2nd browser or browser profile short term. we understand the importance and expect to have it covered soon. thanks for mentioning your interest and for being a Bitwarden customer

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@go12 Is this possible to do with the browser extension yet?

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Hi @Xecure thanks for checking. it is in the works and slated for an upcoming release. it may shift from summer to fall.

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