Apple Passwords Deserve an App cabel.com

Cabel Sasser:

In my dumble opinion, Apple should:

  • Break Passwords out into a standalone app, with an actual fully resizable window (!!), and full, proper UI for most of its features

  • Make Passwords a toolbar item in Safari for easy access and to be top-of-mind for the user

  • Stick to a basic feature set, but do that well

After spending some time yesterday changing a bunch of passwords through Apple’s existing system, all I can say is “yes, please”.

iCloud Keychain works great for my needs, but its existing implementations leave much to be desired. As of MacOS Ventura, the preferred way to do password-related things is through the Passwords pane in System Settings. But its performance flags with the number of passwords I have. That is not a weird flex; it is the only benchmark against which I can judge it.

The more performative option on MacOS is Keychain Access, but that app does not really do the same thing as a dedicated Passwords app. For one, it is for all of your keychains; it is not a password manager. For another, it does not have the “Detect Leaked Passwords” feature. So, yes to this idea, and yes to application windows which can be resized in both directions.