I don’t understand how to use Touch ID with Bitwarden. The relevant options are enabled, but it doesn’t work. When I open a page in Brave and want to retrieve my login details from Bitwarden, if Touch ID isn’t enabled, I have to enter my Bitwarden password using the keyboard. So far, so clear.
However, even when Touch ID is enabled, I still have to enter the Bitwarden password using the keyboard.
It seems to me that this is the same thing, which would mean that Touch ID support is ineffective or doesn’t exist at all. What’s going on here?
@werner Was your Bitwarden Desktop app installed from the Mac App Store? Also, have you turned on Touch ID in your Mac’s system settings? These are both pre-requisites for biometric unlock to work. After enabling Touch ID and installing the Desktop app from the Mac App Store, you need to do the following (in the Desktop app):
Open Bitwarden > Settings, and go to the “Security” section of the Desktop app settings.
Check Unlock with Touch ID and confirm the update when prompted.
Check Ask for Touch ID on app start.
Doing the above procedure will complete Step 1 of the instructions I had linked previously (“1. Turn on unlock with biometrics in the Bitwarden desktop app”).
Also, can you let us know what browser you are using? You were following the instructions for Chromium-based browsers and Firefox, which are not applicable if your browser is Safari.
Finally, it would be helpful if you could respond to the request that was made by @Nail1684:
I’m not entirely sure, but I don’t think I got the app from the App Store. It would, of course, be nice if, in a version where this setting isn’t available, the app simply stated that it isn’t possible, rather than allowing you to select the option – as is currently the case – only for it to have no effect whatsoever without any explanation. But now I know.
(I wouldn’t dare to suggest that this feature should also be available in the version that isn’t from the App Store, of course…)
Another thing is that I can’t post a screenshot of the admin dashboard because I don’t know what it is.
I don’t know anything about a server. I’ve installed Bitwarden and I use it. At some point, I realised that almost whenever an app asks for a password, I can use Touch ID, and I thought it would be nice if that worked with Bitwarden too. So I looked into it and found out that it does work if I select the relevant options. Having done that, I find that it doesn’t work. That’s all I know.
I mean, if it doesn’t work, it just doesn’t work. It’s not the end of the world. But why am I told that it works if I select these options, which are actually there, even though they don’t seem to have any effect? And why are they there then?
When you created this topic, you had selected the tag , which is why you are being asked about this. Sounds like you may have selected that tag by mistake.
Do you plan to uninstall your Desktop app and reinstall it from the Mac App Store?
@werner It’s exactly as @grb said. (and I only asked because a very old self-hosted server version might have also been an explanation why biometric unlock doesn’t work on your computer)
I chose this at random because, for some inexplicable reason, I was specifically asked to select three tags, but there weren’t any left that had anything to do with my query.
I have no intention of uninstalling and reinstalling the app. As I said: if it doesn’t work, it just doesn’t work. I just don’t understand why I can enable this in the settings if I apparently have a version where it doesn’t work. But ultimately, that isn’t all that important either. You get used to such quirks of the IT world over time, and this is one of the most harmless ones.
I’m not sure if we are talking about the same thing here.
On MacOS, both the App Store and the standalone version of the desktop app can make use of biometrics (Touch ID…) to unlock the desktop app (!) itself. – If that doesn’t work in your case, then that is independent of the installation method of your desktop app – and it should work for both.
What only works with the App Store version of the desktop app: unlocking the browser extensions (!) with biometrics (via the desktop app).
The issue that it could be communicated better (which version of the desktop app supports what) was discussed e.g. in this bug report:
And from that report (not a Mac user myself) I think I learned that the standalone desktop app on MacOS should show this error message when you try to set up biometrics for the browser extensions (!) with it, which is not supported as mentioned several times here now…:
So, if you @werner don’t see / didn’t see this error message, then:
you maybe installed the App Store desktop app (and then the questions remains, why you couldn’t set it up successfully)?
that error message was removed in the meantime?? [PS: hopefully only a rhetorical question]
if you installed the standalone desktop app: you never get to the point where you set up the browser extension biometric unlock so that that error message could pop up?
…?
So, to circle back again to your statement:
If that error message is still part of the standalone desktop app, then, actually, you can’t enable extension biometrics on the (standalone) desktop app without getting that error message. So, I would guess something else is not set up the way it should be.
Ah, so that means I’ve installed the version from the App Store, because I can install the browser extension for Brave. I can also set this extension to use Touch ID. I just can’t seem to get it to work.
But as I said: it’s not the end of the world. It just doesn’t work, and that’s fine. I can enter the password manually as well; it’s a bit more of a faff, but it works.
No. That’s totally independent. You can install the browser extensions without even installing the desktop app at all.
(the only two exceptions, I think, where the “browser extension” is indeed tied to a specific desktop app version is with Safari browser on MacOS and with the DuckDuckGo browser integration on MacOS)
As you like. If you ever would be interested in how to make it work on your system, just post again here on the forum.
I think I’ll mark your last post then as the “solution” as you don’t seem to be interested in troubleshooting it any further now.
, which is why you are being asked about this. Sounds like you may have selected that tag by mistake.