How to Share Passwords with Family and Friends Securely

Have you ever wonder how to share the login details and password of a particular website with a friend or family member without compromising security by using chat apps? If you’re an iPhone, iPad, or Mac user, there’s a simple solution.

You can share this sensitive information without revealing the actual password, and even if you update it, they will automatically receive the new version.

This isn’t so much a trick as it is taking advantage of the “Passwords” feature available on your Mac or mobile devices.

So, if you’re interested in learning how to share login information and passwords conveniently, as described above, read on.

Requirements:

To ensure it works, both you, the sharer and the sharee must meet the following criteria:

• Using iOS, iPadOS, or macOS.
• Have each other added as a contact.
• Have "iCloud Passwords & Keychains" activated. (Recommended). How to turn it on.
• Enable “Autofill Passwords and Passkeys” in “Password Options“.(Recommended). How to turn it on.
• Check the "iCloud Password & Keychain" option in "Password Options".

Sharing Your Passwords

This can be done using an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. For the following guide, we will be demonstrating it using an iPad.

First, navigate to the "Passwords".

On iOS or iPadOS, you can do so by either searching for “Passwords” in Spotlight, or navigate to "Settings" > "Passwords". On a Mac, search for “Passwords” in Spotlight.

1. Tap on “Get Started” under “Share Password with Family“, then tap “Continue“.



2. Create a group name, add the group members with whom you wish to share the passwords, and then tap “Create“.



3. Search for and select the passwords you want to share, then tap “Move“.



4. Choose “Notify via Messages” if you wish to inform the user, or select “Not Now” if you prefer not to at this time.

That’s it! The passwords you selected will now be moved to the group and shared with the contact you’ve chosen.

Unshare Your Passwords

There are two ways to unshare a password that was previously shared. You can either unshare the password for a specific contact or unshare passwords with the entire group.

Unshare Passwords with a Specific Contact

To do this:

1. Go to “Passwords” and then tap the name of the group.



2. Inside the group, tap “Manage“, select the user you want to remove, and then tap “Remove from Group“.

Unshare a Specific Password with the Group

If you wish to unshare a specific password that you’ve previously shared with the group, follow these steps:

1. Tap on the group’s name within “Passwords“.
2. Search and select the password you would like to unshare.
3. Then, in the “Group” section, choose “My Passwords“.

This action will transfer the selected password back to your personal list, removing it from the shared group.

Unshare Everything with the Group

To unshare all passwords with a group, you will need to delete the group. This will revert all shared passwords back to your personal list. Here’s how to do it:

1. Tap on the group’s name in “Passwords“.
2. Proceed by tapping “Manage“.



3. Finally, tap “Delete Group“.

Final Thoughts

Earlier in the requirements section, we recommended that both you and the contact with whom you are sharing passwords enable “Autofill Passwords and Passkeys” in “Password Options“.

Why is this recommended?

With this feature enabled, whenever you or your contact visit a specific website that requires a login, you will receive a prompt asking if you want the username and password to be filled in automatically. This convenience saves you the time it would take to manually go into “Passwords” to retrieve the credentials.

Check out our article on “iCloud Password & Keychain vs. Password Managers” to learn more about how iCloud Password can potentially offer advantages over using other password managers.