Families are about to find it a lot easier to use Google Password Manager. Originally announced in February of this year, password sharing has started to roll out to Google Password Manager, Android Authority reports.
According to Google’s support documents, the new feature will allow users to “securely” share copies of their saved passwords with members of their family group.
This means you’ll need to have a family group—or create one—to use this feature. You won't be able to share to any old Google account. If you’re already part of a family group and you use Google Password Manager for Android, you should now see a new “share” button next to your passwords, although Android Authority reports that this might not be the case on desktop quite yet.
I can also confirm that neither of my computers have been able to access the feature, and neither has my iPhone. However, PCs and iOS should eventually get access to it through their respective Chrome apps.
Sharing passwords has always been a really tricky thing, especially since text messages and emails aren’t very secure. Having a password sharing option available right in Google Password Manager will undoubtedly make the free password manager even more appealing for users that already trust Google with their information.
Other password managers, like 1Password, LastPass, Bitwarden, and even the relative newcomer Proton Pass, also offer password-sharing functionality, although like Google's reliance on family groups, they all come with their own limitations.
Hopefully, Google will expand on this feature in the future—perhaps with something like LastPass’s one-time-password feature, which allows you to share a password with someone without actually giving them the password. That one-time password also expires after a certain amount of time, to help keep your account secure.
Keep an eye out for the new sharing functionality in your Google Password Manager over the coming days. It should be available as part of May’s Google Play Services update v24.20.
