Persistent Bitwarden UI and maintain unsaved data

I have this issue too, and it’s very frustrating.

I was creating a new password. I clicked on another tab to get info to copy/paste into bitwarden, but clicking on another tab in chrome closes the Bitwarden extension and loses all typed data.

One idea is to keep the bitwarden extension window open, or at least save all progress so that once I click the bitwarden extension icon, it brings me back where I was with all the same data.

… add the new credentials or the new password only to Bitwarden BEFORE you do it on the website or in the app.

… to click the arrow to get a pop-out that will stay even if you follow the urge to switch to a different tab.

I’ve switched to Bitwarden a few months ago and recently added TOTP for some critical websites and overall really enjoy the experience. But this issue right here has a high priority in my opinion, since I almost forgot to update a TOTP code that could have become problematic for getting locked out of an account permanently. Luckily I realized and fixed it, but if I slept less hours I might have forgotten about it.

But overall Bitwarden is really amazing, especially that all of it is open source, and I am very happy to pay $10 a year to help Bitwarden :slight_smile:

Do not close opened entry while I’m copying login/password to website or credit card data. After coping just 1 thing I need to search it again.

Same for the creating an entry, if I need to copy all data from a website I have to focus on a website, which will close bitwarden’s plugin window and reset the filled form.

When I have to copy things from an item selectively and I go back to the browser extension after clicking off it, the item I was last viewing has gone, this slows me down and makes manual selective filling more difficult.

Feature name

  • Controllable ‘auto close’ behavior on browser

Feature function

  • Give user option to NOT automatically close the browser popup when clicking over to anything else

  • Current behavior makes it really annoying when you have multiple steps involved and are not (or cannot) use the right click menu. (Various reasons for that, including in many cases using the browser plugin for credential access for other windows outside of the browser.)

  • Current behavior is particularly annoying when copying data INTO bitwarden as you can’t do it in one session. I wind up having to save a partial entry, then find and edit, make partial update, repeat - if there are several copy/pastes involved. Really annoying, especially when you click off by mistake and it throws away your entire entry.

  • ALTERNATIVE IMPLEMENTATION: Retain the “last dialog” in BW plugin including any partially entered data. Have a quick dropdown option at the top of the BW menu to bring up the last thing you were looking at - including an unsaved new create/edit entry. This would not be as nice as just being able to tell BW “don’t close unless I tell you to close” - but it would be a huge improvement over current behavior.

Related topics + references

  • This behavior is supported by LastPass and is one of the only major pain points I’ve had moving away from LP to BW.
  • Yes, I am aware of being able to pop out and of the desktop app, but it’s an extra step, and request here is specifically about usability of the plugin within browser.
6 Likes

Yup. This is an issue.

My duplicate: When user adds a login, make sure entered information is not lost if extension window closes

A possible short term workaround for this in the mean time – add the ability to pop out the browser dialog while on the edit or view screens for an item. Right now, you can only pop out while in the main listing, not on any of the sub-pages.

At least then, if you’re part of the way through entry and realize “Oh, crap I have to click out to copy something else” – at least you can “stick the dialog” by popping it out. (Maybe that should even be the behavior of the persist – instead of just having the dialog to warn/save – offer to pop out the window.)

2 Likes

Showing the message “Do you want to save?” when the document with unsaved data is about to be closed, had been a staple of user interface with computers for the last 50 years at least. Each and every programmer who suddenly found himself not having implemented it in his program, must do it within the next 30 seconds, acting on pure reflex, without even thinking, not to mention collecting any votes.

2 Likes

I’ve been running into this problem since I moved from Lastpass to Bitwarden recently, specifically when adding a new item using the browser extension.

A simple way to avoid the problem would be to just do what Lastpass does and make the add item button, in the top-right of the browser extension, open a new tab in the browser to enter the information, as that allows users to switch between tabs to copy and paste information before saving the new item, without the information being lost when switching away.

4 Likes

Save as above: click add; start entering info, switch tab/window/app; info’s gone. Was almost catastrophic as I lost a 6 digit pin and one-time-view recovery key. Fortunatley I was able to remember the random pin I just made up and recover the newly created account (creating another new account wasn’t an option).

I know there was another thread about this that I replied to a while ago … can’t find it.

But can confirm that this is a problem. I’ve lost partially filled new Logins several times. Usually it’s not a real problem, but it is extremely annoying when it happens.

1 Like

This feature is less of a feature and more of a major usability bug, IMO.

I’m fairly new to Bitwarden, but I repeated lose partially saved entries and have to start all over. It’s maddening, at times. I have started to train myself to at least hit Save before switching windows, but then I have to re-open Bitwarden extension and hit Edit again when I want to paste in new information.

It causes me dozens of extra clicks and wasted time and at least a few times, lost passwords, when creating new entries.

1 Like

This is a major function! I’m constantly loosing info couse of this.
Now i know im not alone

1 Like

For some reason I thought this was not an issue in Chrome, but I see it has the same behavior. In the desktop app it will stop you with a warning. I think the desktop app is Chromium powered, but it isn’t dealing with a browser’s UI limitations. No luck finding the code snippet that said something about this issue.

Feature name

Warning for saving items or changes in case of closing of the program.

Feature function

This feature will prevent accidentally discard of new created or changed items.

This one is extremely annoying. Especially when copy pasting credentials from outside the browser.

2 Likes

I agree and have done this several times by mistake. I am not a noob!

Just adding my name to this issue as I find that the core reason for using a password manager is browser extension behaviour and features. While Bitwarden is free or low cost it should invest in UX.
This is not a feature request. this is a basic functionality of a password manager app/ extension.

2 Likes

+1 +1 +1. Everything I wanted to say has been said. Multiple times. juannm’s animation showing the same process in Bitwarden vs LastPass really captures it well. Is a fix likely anytime soon? This issues has lingered for years.