Hi all
I’ve started using bitwarden on android and i cannot get autofill to work.
It’s fine on my pc, but i’ve run out of ideas for android, nothing happens even though i’ve selected all the necessary options
Welcome to the community.
Are you trying to use it to autofill an App or the logon page in a web browser? Have you or can you try other apps or websites? What browser are you using?
Just to be sure, the autofill provider selected on the phone is Bitwarden and not something else, correct?
What version of Android do you use? Did you change the settings according to the documentation?
Also, it may help to disable the Google Password Manager.
Hi
I managed to get it working, just more things to switch on than i thought. Use accessibility seemed to make the difference
1 Like
I also am having problems with Bitwarden on Android. With help from your team last week I got Bitwarden working on iPhone and iPad, but my Pixel 8 phone running Android 14 has so far resisted all my attempts to get Bitwarden to do anything beyond coming to life as a seemingly unconnected app.
Info that may be germane:
- Bitwarden installed from the Google Play Store is ver 2024.10.0. To my surprise this seems to be a “desktop” version, or in any event not identified as a mobile version. It keeps turning itself off and requiring the master password be re-entered, but one problem at at time.
- In the Pixel’s Settings > Password, passkeys & autofill > Additional Services, I have enabled Bitwarden, but about every other time I check it, it seems to have reverted to disabled. Meanwhile, Preferred Services lists Google, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to disable it. I’m guessing this may be the cause of (or at least related to) the problem I’m having.
OK, so on to the problem:
- I’m using the Chrome browser, and my test case is www.amazon.com. On my desktop and my wife’s (both Windows) Bitwarden acts as I expect. I look up my Amazon entry, the Bitwarden icon shows up with an overlaid number indicating number of potential autofill entries, and autofill occurs as I click on Username and Password on the Amazon login page.
- But on my Pixel 8, no joy at all. There’s no indication on Chrome that Bitwarden exists, And a “right click” on the 3-dot symbol shows Google Password Manager but no sign of Bitwarden.
If I open Bitwarden separately, select Amazon, then tap the URI symbol that will ordinarily open a tab for the Amazon website, a new chrome tab for Amazon opens. I tap Sign in and Amazon’s site asks me to (manually) enter my email address. Still, no sign of Bitwarden.
OK, over to you folks. I’ve run out of patience for now. The symptoms aren’t changing so clearly I’m not getting any smarter…
Martt Harding
Regarding you having to keep putting your master password, yeah that’s annoying. The next time you log in to the android app, click Settings, Account Security, then turn on Unlock with Biometrics and/or PIN code. The next time you log in you can use pin or biometrics.
Second, you said autofill isn’t working. You said Bitwarden is listed under “Additional Services”. To get it back under “Preferred Service” click on Google in preferred service, then re-select Bitwarden and click “change”. Then click back and that will put Bitwarden back under “Preferred Service”.
AHA! I think you have broken the code, and THANK YOU for such a quick response. I didn’t realize I could CHANGE the preferred service. It was set, as you suspected, to Google, but Bitwarden was listed as an option. So I selected Bitwarden and when I returned to the Passwords, Passkeys & Autofill screen I found Bitwarden displayed as “preferred service”. And likely the most important thing: Google was now listed under “additional services” and had defaulted to OFF.
Your advice is likely to save me wrestling with the same issue on my Samsung A8 tablet which is next in queue for Bitwarden, and thank you in advance for that.
I probably won’t be able to play with this problem for a few hours yet, and will post a follow-up with hopefully all smiles. And if not, follow-up questions. Stay tuned.
…And addressing the password issue: For the moment that isn’t bugging me, and since it’s a passphrase at least it’s simple to enter. However I’ll need to sort out how to set whether Bitwarden logs me out after inactivity, or instead at power-down. I found that info on Bitwarden’s very comprehensive website when I was setting up the capability on my Windows PC. But I have a suggestion if there’s someone who might listen: As a complete ‘newbie’ to Bitwarden and migrating from an ancient copy of KeePassX, the various options and versions of Bitwarden were (and mostly still are) very puzzling. I didn’t find what amounts to a flow chart and/or functional tree that showed how the parts fit together so it was vaguely like Brownian motion as I tried to find relevant help pages. I think Bitwarden could make the “how it all fits together” aspect a lot more understandable if anyone is willing to take the time.
Martt Harding
I agree, their change preferred service isn’t very intuitive in the Android UI, probably by design. As for entering the master password every time, if you do that once then change the settings I was talking about, it won’t do it again. That is unless you go into your Bitwarden instance and deauthenticate all logged in instances, then it will force you to re-enter the master password on all devices. If you have any other questions I’m sure we’re all very happy to help.
Alphanaut,
Well, I was hoping that my Samsung A8 tablet running Android 14 and Chrome as default browser wouldn’t present a challenge for getting Bitwarden set up. But no such luck.
First I tried deleting all the stored passwords on Google Chrome. I thought that already-saved passwords might be why there was no option other than Google Password Manager offered. So I deleted all of them. No joy. Did a little reading online.
Per what I’d read online, went to Google Password Manager settings and unselected “Offer to save passwords”. At the bottom of the screen was an unexpected notice: “You’ve chosen not to save passwords for these sites and apps:” and it lists Bitwarden Password Manager and vault.bitwarden.com.
There’s an “X” associated with each of the above entries, so I suppose I could allow saving passwords for the Bitwarden entries, but what would that have to do with substituting Bitwarden as password manager? This doesn’t makes sense to me.
Sorry, but I seem to be at a dead end again and am hoping for some advice.
Martt
Hi Alphanaut,
I was hoping that having substituted Bitwarden for Google Password Manager on the Pixel 8 phone, that Bitwarden would show up as an icon on Chrome and I’d finally be able to use Bitwarden to fill in usernames and passwords. But it didn’t improve the situation. I can call up a website that needs a login (one that Bitwarden already has in its database) but there is no indication that Bitwarden can respond and fill in username (and presumably, password as well if I can ever get past username).
The Samsung A8 tablet and the PIxel 8 phone now seem to display essentially the same setup for password management except that neither one’s Chrome browser seems to be linked to Bitwarden. Perhaps there is a setting in Bitwarden that I need to tweak? This is remarkably frustrating; seems it should be straightforward but absolutely is not.
Martt
Did you go into the Bitwarden app on the Pixel and click on Settings/Auto-fill and make sure the top two sliders are enabled? Both Android and Apple don’t like 3rd party apps reaching into their walled garden ecosystem; I agree with you that it could certainly be better and more intuitive.
I assume you are referring to “Auto-fill services” and “Use inline auto-fill”. Yes, they are both enabled now and I haven’t changed them previously. Enabled by default I assume, since I don’t have enough familiarity with Bitwarden yet to have selected them myself.
Earlier in this topic, from “Martin”, there is a reference to one of your seemingly hundreds of articles about care and feeding of Bitwarden. “Autofill Logins on Android” seems promising and I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen it previously. Like any search, you have to use the correct selection of terms or there’s little hope of finding an answer anytime soon.
Anyhow, I’ll read it tomorrow morning.
If I can’t find solutions by early afternoon Monday I’ll have to take a break until the end of the week, then re-start on this. I mention this only because I don’t want you or others to think I’ve lost interest. I definitely haven’t. Gotta get this working. Didn’t think it would absorb so much time but I’m a Windows guy, Android and Apple are pretty close to foreign territory for me. Bitwarden likewise.
Martt
Martt