Unfortunately, every online account has its own procedure for updating a password, and even its own set of rules for what would constitute an acceptable password. It is currently impossible to automate the password change process (no matter what you are using for your password manager), so there is no other solution than to manually go to each website’s password change page and set a new, strong password there.
Assuming that you already have a matching Bitwarden login item that you’ve imported from Chrome, then you can quickly access the vault item by opening the browser extension, and clicking the “view” icon (icon looks like a card with three lines) next to the item shown at the top of the page.
At this point, the most effective work flow is to complete the following actions within the browser extension:
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Copy the existing password to the clipboard, by clicking the Copy icon next to the password field (icon looks like two overlapping squares).
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Click the “Edit” button (upper right corner).
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Click the Generate Password icon (
) to the right of the password field. -
Click “Yes” in response to the “Overwrite Password” warning.
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(Optional: If desired, make adjustments to the password generator settings. A good default is to set the password length to 15, with a mix of at least 1 uppercase letter, lowercase letter, number, and special character.)
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Click the “Select” button (upper right corner).
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Click the “Save” button (upper right corner).
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Click the “Auto-fill” button at the bottom of the displayed item information (if you have a large notes section, you may have to scroll down to see the “Auto-fill” button).
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On the website’s password change form, the new password should now have been transferred to all password entry fields (including the password confirmation field). If one of the password fields on the form is “Old Password”, then delete the new password from that field and paste in your old password (which you had copied to the clipboard in Step 1 above).
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Submit the password change form.
It may seem like a long process when written out like this, but the work flow is quite natural, and you’ll get the hang of it quickly. If you get an error (because of the website’s password rules), then you should start over from Step 2 (do not copy the password again, since the password stored in Bitwarden is now your attempted new password). If you should lose the original password from the clipboard, you will be able to retrieve it from Bitwarden’s password history (open the item for viewing, scroll all the way to the bottom, and click on the number shown after “Password history”).