I’m running Bitwarden on a Linux desktop and in Firefox (on the Linux desktop). Here are the details:
Desktop
Desktop version (Linux Mint 22.3 Zena \n \l)
Version 2026.5.0
SDK ‘main (e13c4fc)’
Shell 39.8.5
Renderer 142.0.7444.265
Node 22.22.1
Architecture x64
Web app (Firefox 151.0.1) 2026.4.0
When I try to login to Bitwarden on the desktop, I logout, then continue, the login with device. A notification comes to my phone, I tap that notification and Bitwarden opens on my phone in the Settings menu. It doesn’t present the security phrase nor does it ask for approval. I remain logged out of the web app.
I get exactly the same result when I try to login to the web app using my phone.
Login with device works perfectly on my Windows 11 computers.
Also, FWIW, if I try to enable “Unlock with system identification” in the desktop app, I get the following message:
“Automatic setup not available. Due to the installation method, biometrics support could not be automatically enabled. Would you like to open the documentation on how to do this manually”
When I respond with “Yes” I get lots of detail on how to set it up, but it’s well over my head as a novice Linux user. Evidently I didn’t install Bitwarden using the Flatpak. I tried to do that today, but got nowhere.
I’d like to use Bitwarden on my Linux computer. Thanks in advance for any help.
I thought I had, but obviously I had not. The instructions in the link advise that once I tap on the login request notification, the mobile app will open in Settings, where you tap, Account Security, then Pending Login Requests, then tap on the request and approve it. That process worked for me.
The problem I had was that I was not expecting to navigate the Settings menu to approve the request, since I never had to do that when the request came from Windows. Maybe that has changed now too, I haven’t checked.
So login with device works fine for me now. Sorry for not paying close attention.
Now that that works, can you help me with the “Unlock using system identification” option? That seems to me to be the analog to unlock with biometrics in the Windows environment, which works well for me.
Hm. I didn’t use it myself lately… If you hadn’t written that you get the notification on your phone I would have asked if your BW mobile app had “Notifications” permissions enabled… Sorry, I can’t say anything more to that without testing it myself again (maybe I will do that).
According to this overview, the Flatpak version is the only one that requires manual installations for desktop biometrics. If you can, you could choose another variant (but be aware of the possible disadvantages – like only the Snap and Flatpak versions provide auto-updates without any other measure)
PS: Sorry, I’m not a Linux user, so unfortunately I can’t assist with that Polkit policy installation for the Flatpak desktop app…
I can’t say how BW got installed on this machine. I don’t remember installing it myself. Maybe it’s part of the “normal” installation/update process I’ve got running on that computer. I’ll have to check. But I do know for sure that I did not install it myself using Flatpak.
I’m not much of a Linux user either, but I enjoy poking around in the Linux environment and keeping it updated in case my Windows machines quit. I’ll poke around some more looking at the documentation that’s out there to see if I can get that functionality working.