I’ve given up on trying to understand LastPass and am now trying Bitwarden. Is there a step by step tutorial on how it works?
I’ve created the account, created my first vault item (a bank account) and can’t figure out how it’s supposed to work. I can log in to BW, then go the the bank acct and I’d expect BW to fill in the password but it doesn’t. Alternately if I launch the bank site from the BW vault, it opens the bank login page but still no password is filled in. Am I not understanding what BW is supposed to do?
I’m using windows 10, Chrome and I have installed the BW extension.
I’m using the free BW version and will happily upgrade if I can know that it does what I’m looking for.
Thank you! I couldn’t find this but it took me a while to figure out that settings on the webpage are different than settings on the browser extension.
So now the auto fill is better but I can’t find what I’m looking for entirely. I see that I can set the vault to “timeout” with a variety of time options and I assume “timeout” means that it will not automatically fill in passwords if I have the action set to “Lock”. Is that right? I have my laptop set to sleep when I close the lid and I usually don’t shutdown my browser before I do that. Is there a way to have BW lock when I shut the lid but don’t shut down the browser? I’d rather choose for it to lock with a certain action (like closing the lid) rather than on a timed basis.
That’s right - if your vault has “timed-out” and locked, there is no way to access your passwords or to autofill a page unless you unlock the vault through the BW extension.
Unfortunately, there is no option to lock your BW vault when you close the lid of your laptop, but there is an option to lock the vault “On System Lock”. So, you just need to setup Windows to lock itself when you need it to. One way to do this is (1) put the computer to sleep every time the lid is closed, and then (2) require a password to unlock the computer when waking from sleep. Just be sure to test it out to verify it is doing exactly what you intend. This article has some good tips:
Thank you too, that gets me to what I’m looking for. Can I assume BW will not timeout unless I do something to lock the pc (put it to sleep or turn off)?
Also, with these settings I find that on my bank’s login page I can right click in the password box and see the BW option but when I click on the “Vault is locked” message it just goes away and I have to go to my extensions and find BW for the opportunity to unlock it. I thought I earlier saw BW pop up a box requesting pw when I clicked on the “vault is locked” msg. (maybe I’m misremembering) That would be a lot more convenient.
I might look to figure out how to put a button on the task bar to open BW so as to login at the beginning of every session.
Hi John. Yes, that is correct - unless you unlock Bitwarden first, it will not autofill and you won’t get a prompt. And yes, definitely add an icon for the extension on your browser’s menu bar/task bar. It even shows you when it is locked or not, so that you will never have to remember.
Thanks so much to both of you for the help. It looks like I’ll choose to stick with Bitwarden for now. Now that I have the Chrome extension working, I’ll be putting it on my phone as well and syncing.
Another question related to the above conversation… When looking at the “timeout” options in the Chrome extension and the web app, I see that they aren’t quite the same. The extension has the “on system lock” option but not the web app. So now I have settings in both places that don’t match… how is that going to work? Will the extension supersede the web app?
And another question… I just installed the Android app and synced it without issue. All of my bank accounts, etc are there and I enabled “auto-fill services” in the settings and even rebooted my phone. When I go to an account in the vault and choose “Launch” it launches the website but doesn’t auto fill. I don’t see anything else in settings that might address that. Can you tell me what I’m missing? I tried this with several login sites.
I have the fingerprint login enabled and have tried using that as well as inputting my master password manually. That didn’t seem to make a difference…
Hi again John - yes, you are correct that the vault timeouts vary between which client app, browser, and operating system you are on. Some browsers or operating systems support functions that the other may not, hence the differences in Bitwarden options. But don’t worry - those options are independently set on each Bitwarden client.
Regarding your question about auto-fill on your Android device, it is hard for me to say what is happening given that I can’t see what steps you are performing on your device. Have you had a look at the online documentation for using the Android app? There is some great information there: https://bitwarden.com/help/article/getting-started-mobile/
Thanks, I guess I really don’t need to use anything more than the browser extension on my laptop so I’ll just focus on the settings there.
I don’t see anything on that link that clears up the autofill issue on Android. The only setting that seems to apply to my phone (Samsung S10e - Android ver 9) is the “Autofill Service” setting and BW is already checked there. This is not a deal breaker as I rarely want to access bank accounts via phone but it would be nice to get it resolved.
Did you see the section entitled Setup Auto-Fill and the link within that takes you to this page? https://bitwarden.com/help/article/auto-fill-android/
There is a ton of information on those pages - I am pretty sure they will help if you take the time to read up. Cheers!
Yes I did go there but the only applicable information seemed to be the setting I mentioned above. I’ve tried toggling that on and off with no change.
I’m having some more issues with the android app but I need to go now and probably won’t return to this until tomorrow.(maybe)
I hope you don’t mind the barrage of questions! I do appreciate the help and if I can’t get this working to my satisfaction, I’ll try 1password next.
Thanks!
Ok, I figured out how to get BW to autofill through that video although the settings options weren’t the same. There is no “Autofill accessibility service” on my phone as mentioned at the 1:08 point in that video but I did go into my phone settings and under “Accessibility” found “Installed services” which had an option to toggle BW on/off. I really don’t understand what that setting even is but at least now BW auto fills as expected.
So now I have autofill happening on my phone but I can’t seem to control when it doesn’t autofill. I have BW set for “vault timeout” On App Restart and the “Vault timeout action” as Lock but when I tell my phone to “Close All” and then open a bank acct page, BW still autofills. I would expect it to require the master password to login to BW once I had closed the app. Does that make sense?
