Preferences set to not timeout for a few days, but being timeout every single time I close the browser

Ask the Community Password Manager
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1

I have been using BitWarden for a little while now. I had it installed on my PC that was running windows 10 home and now that I have a pc running windows 11 pro I have been using it with this operating system. My browser is the Brave browser and it is the version
2025.7.0 extension.

In preferences I have it set to a customized timeout of 5 days ; Vault timeout action is lock.
It was working well until a few days ago when I would be locked out every time I closed my browser. I have checked the settings and that did not change but for some reason every time I close my browser I have to log back into BitWarden again even if it has just been a couple hours later.

I am not sure what server:self-hosting is that I selected as one of the tags (hope that is correct).

Anyway, All was going fine until the other day when I did a complete uninstall of the browser and then did a reinstall and then installed the extension again.

Not sure if I should try uninstalling the extension and then reinstall it again or if there is something else I am missing.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You

2

@lmh Welcome to the forum!

The behavior would not have been any different prior to “a few days ago” — unless you set to vault timeout to “Never”, the browser extension has always locked whenever you restart the browser. This is normal behavior (see point #3 here). Perhaps you previously did not close and restart your browser, but instead kept it minimized and running in the background, in which case the browser extension would not be locked.

3

Thank You. I guess that I must have had it set to Never before and didn’t realize it.

I thought that by setting it to 5 days / 120 hours that I would not be locked out until them. I guess I just forgot about that never option.

I had set it from the website and there is no option for never there so this time I did it from the extension > account security > vault timeout is now set to never.

Thank You So Very Very Much

4

Glad that I could help clear up the confusion. However, please beware that “Never” is not a secure setting, meaning that if an attacker ever gets access to your device (either physical access, or remote access via malware), they will be able to easily steal all of the information that is stored in your vault. Thus, the “Never” setting is usually not recommended, unless your devices have extremely strong defenses against malware and unauthorized physical access.

5

More likely, you had a second, minimized browser window that you were not using. Which, incidentally is a pretty good way of ensuring that your lock/logout setting behaves as desired. our hard drive.