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Ask HN: How do you share passwords?

2 points by nkantar ↗ HN
How do you deal with the fact that some passwords have to be shared?

From less vital services like Netflix to rather important ones like the water and power companies' sites, I find myself having no choice but to share passwords with my wife.

I've gone from wanting to use a simple shared Google Sheets spreadsheet, to considering writing a password storage solution myself (egads), to thinking a password manager would be best. However, I'm somewhat unsure if that's really the best way and don't know which one(s) to trust the most.

What would HN suggest?

(We're both macOS and iOS users, if relevant.)

4 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 31.6 ms ] thread
SmaugDragon
I'm sold on Lastpass. It allows sharing of passwords and even will allow you to share a password that the other user doesnt get to see. I pay the $12/yr subscription so I don't know if this is available in the free version.
byoung2
That's what we used at my last job, the enterprise version.
smt88
I use KeePass. It's an offline password manager, so you don't have to worry about trusting a cloud provider to have good security practices. You can sync it using OwnCloud or rsync or whatever you do trust. I use SpiderOak.

I secure mine using a unique password and an SSH key. If you do use a cloud sync service, never sync the SSH key. Keep a copy of it on a USB drive hidden somewhere in your home, and then just copy it onto any device that might need it.

(You definitely can use this system on a mobile phone, but I find it too risky. There are probably ways to make it more secure to have these files on your phone.)

aprdm
I use 1password and share on dropbox. Can create vaults for different kinds of passwords etc