Brave-browser: Apple Keychain as possible password manager

[bsclifton]

Carried over from https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/issues/3226

The idea would be (on macOS) to integrate with Apple's Keychain and be able to use credentials stored there (similar to behavior from Safari)

[jessecurry]

This is the big barrier to switching for me at the moment. I use auto-generated passwords on most sites, having to switch into Keychain Access every time I login to a site is painful, and switching to a less integrated password manager would also be pretty painful.

[BCtopics]

+1 This is the main reason I can't fully switch over to brave.

[Alex-Key]

+1 agree, really one of the last things left to make this the best browser experience on MacOS

[Hermitter]

+1 Would really love this feature. Are there any plans for this yet?

[CodeWarriorr]

+1

[beegus]

+1

[samoclay]

will this be included in any near future sprints?

[bsclifton]

cc: @tomlowenthal @rebron for prioritization

[kwatsen]

One clarification, keychain integration on iOS appears to be partially working already, with Brave v1.9.1 (19.04.02.12).

On iOS, when logging into a site, I am able to auto-fill my credentials stored in Keychain.
Unfortunately, Brave prompts "Save login for for ?", to which one can hit "Don't Save", which is annoying and error-prone. Good news is that the "Save Login" prompt can be disabled in Brave Settings.

Being able to read (not write) passwords from Keychain is a reasonable user experience for now (being able to write to Keychain could come later). My wish is for Brave on MacOS (not iOS) to do the same. This issue blocks me from using Brave as my primary browser on MacOS.

[samoclay]

For Mac Desktop not iOS

On 8 May 2019, at 18:59, Kent Watsen [e-mail] wrote:

One clarification, keychain integration on iOS appears to be partially working already, with Brave v1.9.1 (19.04.02.12).

On iOS, when logging into a site, I am able to auto-fill my credentials stored in Keychain.
Unfortunately, Brave prompts "Save login for for ?", to which one can hit "Don't Save", which is annoying and error-prone. Good news is that the "Save Login" prompt can be disabled in Brave Settings.

Being able to read (not write) passwords from Keychain is a reasonable user experience for now (being able to write to Keychain could come later). My wish is for Brave on MacOS (not iOS) to do the same. This issue blocks me from using Brave as my primary browser on MacOS.

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[sjurgis]

This is my main blocker from switching from Chrome (and potentially Safari).

One thing to mention I kinda like about Chromes approach tho - deleting Profile (say terminating work with particular client) - permanently deletes their passwords too! So then I don't have to manually care about them.

[SchroedersKater]

Same here. I better not trust any new browser. The can tell a lot.

[samoclay]

Hey, what priority level is this? I love using Brave however my passwords are being duplicated in Brave password manager and having to copy over from Apple Keychain is a major chore.

[Hultner]

Hey, what priority level is this? I love using Brave however my passwords are being duplicated in Brave password manager and having to copy over from Apple Keychain is a major chore.

^This is my main reason for not switching to brave. 👍
Not having a keychain integration puts a major moat between me as a potential user and the brave browser.

[samoclay]

if this is super complicated, maybe an easier alternative could be adjusting the brave password manager (having it sync'ing on a brave private blockchain, Using a master key (mnemonic phrase), with an option to import/export passwords between brave-chain / apple key-chain.

[venatir]

+1. Cannot switch without this. At the moment I only use it from time to time and have to go and manually copy paste passwords. My password manager is keychain. Switching browser is easier than switching an os level password manager with nice syncing

[regiryan]

+1 was about to switch but the thought of manually pulling all my auto-generated passwords from keychain (entering the master password each time) is giving me anxiety

[wmehilos]

+1, switching browsers on Desktop is very much something I'm willing to do, but the inability to set default apps on iOS keeps me on Safari (just not worth the jank and headache trying to do something the OS doesn't really want you to do). Unfortunately, this means I'm very much tied to iCloud Keychain. My login password is something like 20 characters long. Having to type that in every time I need to grab one of my auto generated passwords for the multitude of websites I have accounts for is just too big of a headache. Brave is my jam, Safari on Mac is dead to me ever since 13.0, but without my iCloud Keychain, I'm stuck.

[samoclay]

Some light reading on Access control lists over at Apple developer docs might help with this.
We would all be grateful if you could consider adding this to Brave

[bodokaiser]

+1

[RobMaskell]

Won't stop me switching from Chrome of Firefox, but will stop me switching from Safari

[RyanBeckett]

+1

[mitjans]

Any update on this feature request? Just tried to switch from Safari to Brave, the first thing I noticed is the lack of keychain integration. Would be awesome to have it!

[oraichu]

+1. Love the browser, but missing this feature.

[sanket0354]

+1 - the integration will make a lot of difference for many people

[wivern-co-uk]

+1 - can't switch fully to Brave and have to use another browsers, which can move passwords across devices and platforms.
@rebron, what we(community) can do to bump priority?

[osarrouy]

+1

[originalgravity]

Not having this is a barrier for me unfortunately

[Demircivi]

Same goes for me.
I really like using Apple Keychain in Safari on my Mac and also on my iPhone. Since my passwords are stored in it I never think about changing it since no browsers(Chrome, Edge, Firefox, ...) support keychain including Brave.

[rilaby]

Throwing out a comment just to upvote on the importance of the feature.

[duvrai]

Won't work that way

This issue's title says Apple Keychain as possible password manager? I suppose the question is about Brave sharing passwords with Safari in the Keychain. But I think it won't work that way. If I'm right Apple doesn't want anything to access Safari's passwords in the Keychain, they do encourage alternative password managers.

Export passwords from Apple Keychain?

Is it even possible for anything other than Safari to access its passwords? The only evidence I could find (recommended by 1password) is an applescript that will copy/paste usernames/passwords from the Safari UI one by one to a csv file. This is probably unsafe. It's also an ugly and slow process and it might of course be blocked in future Safari updates. But it seems the only migration solution for the moment.

Switching to Brave from Safari

While reading the above comments, it's clear that people use iCloud to sync their keychain between devices. In that case, a one time export of passwords would also mean you need to switch to Brave on all your devices to continue to be able to read/write new passwords. Luckily this will become possible in iOS 14 since it will finally let us change the default browser.

Brave saved passwords as an iOS autofill provider

On iOS, instead of Brave accessing (Safari) passwords in the Apple Keychain, Brave should provide its passwords as an AutoFill provider (brave/brave-ios#297). (Firefox did exactly this with Lockwise.) This way saved passwords in Brave would not only be accesible to Safari on iOS and vice versa, but AutoFill would also work between websites and their iOS apps (using their corresponding domain).

Password generator

Again summarizing what people said above: people using Safari's password generator won't switch without this functionality. (Quite frankly integrated password generators should be security 101, right?) Currently there is no password generator in Brave: #4901

Brave Sync v2

Another side note is that Brave itself has its Sync features currently disabled. Sync will be coming back as Sync V2 (#9989) in Brave 1.12 which is currently planned for august 2020