Shared family passwords: no more sending them over chat

“What's the Netflix password?” — and the password flies through chat, where it lives forever, or gets dictated over the phone and comes out wrong the second time. Family passwords — streaming services, the utility provider, a store account with credit, the kids' school system — need to reach several people, but usually live only in one person's head or password manager. Both major platforms can now share passwords in a controlled way: you set up a shared group, and selected passwords are visible to, and auto-filled for, every member. When one person changes a password, it updates automatically for everyone else.

How to do it

iPhone (Passwords, iOS 17 and later):

1. Open the Passwords app (on older versions, Settings → Passwords) and choose New Shared Group.
2. Name it “Family” and invite members — if you use Family Sharing, they'll be suggested automatically.
3. Choose which passwords to move into the group. Only those get shared; everything else stays private.

Android (Google Password Manager):

1. In Settings → Google → Password Manager, open a saved password and choose Share — you can share it with members of your Google family group.

Standalone password managers (Bitwarden, 1Password, and others) offer family plans with shared vaults — same principle, and it works across platforms when half the family has an iPhone and half has Android.

One key detail: only share accounts that are genuinely shared. A personal email or bank account never belongs in a shared group.

A typical scenario

A family changes their streaming service password because their son's friend got hold of it at some point. In the old days, that meant a whole cycle: send the new password to three people over three different channels, it doesn't get entered right for two of them, one saves it wrong and asks again a week later. With a shared group, Mom changes the password in one place — and it auto-fills on all three family devices the next time anyone logs in. Nobody sent anything, and the password never sat in a chat.

A bonus: you no longer need weak, memorable passwords just for the sake of sharing. The group can carry a long generated password nobody in the family ever actually sees, let alone has to read out loud.

What you get out of it

Passwords disappear from text messages and sticky notes — the most common way family passwords leak out. Changing a password stops being a communication project. And the family can finally use strong, unique passwords even for shared accounts, because nobody has to copy them down by hand. When you just need to quickly find a password for yourself, the tip Your Browser Can Reveal a Forgotten Password helps.

Pro tip

A shared group is also an elegant solution for two-factor codes on joint accounts: when a verification code is generated for a password stored in the group, it fills in for every member — no more “did the SMS with the code arrive? forward it to me.” And when a member leaves the group (typically a grown-up kid moving out), you have a single place to see at a glance which passwords it's time to change.