Hands-On Mac 179 transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show

0:00:00 - Mikah Sargent
Coming up on Hands-On Mac. Let's take a look at the Passwords app in macOS Sequoia. Stay tuned Podcasts you love From people you trust. This is Twit. Hello and welcome to Hands-On Mac. I'm Micah Sargent, and today it is time for us to take a good look at the Passwords app in macOS, because it is the one-stop shop to take care of all of your credential information, and I realized that it is an opportunity for us to talk about what the Passwords app can do, now that it is a full featured place for storing all of your login. So let's head over to macOS Sequoia to take a look. All right, here we are in macOS Sequoia with the Passwords app opened, and the first thing that I want to point out here is that in the left hand side, in that window, in that toolbar, we have many options. Of course, I currently have all selected, but, if you'll notice, there is a pass keys option that shows you the pass keys that you have created. There is a codes option, which we'll get back to, but these are verification codes. Wi-fi options are also here, so you can see the different Wi-Fi networks you've connected to and learn the passwords for those Wi-Fi networks. Security, which gives you recommendations for when you should change a password, based on if a website has been hacked or some other way, that credentials have been lost and then, of course, deleted, which removes things that you don't have anymore. This is also the place where you can create shared groups, so you can actually share credentials with other people. So let's kind of take a look at each of these categories.

First and foremost, pass keys. Now pass keys are created automatically. So if I click on freeprintscardscom, I can see that I created a pass key with the Micah Twit account. Now it tells me when the passkey was created, the website where it is used, and then talks a little bit about passkeys in general. If I hit edit, you'll notice that there's not a lot that you can change. You can add some notes to this. You can change the website if the place where it's supposed to be used is different from what you would expect, and you can also add a password, because there are times where a password and a passkey are used together. I'm going to hit cancel here and I'm going to show you that you can also, at any point, click the beacon icon, which is actually a share button, but the reason why it looks like this is because you can only airdrop these pass keys to other people. There's no other way to share them, so you're not able to, for example, export them and send them in an email or anything like that. It only lets you airdrop them. Now pass keys can be sorted by title, website date created, date edited and then, of course, in ascending and descending order. Those sorting orders apply to all of these Codes are for verification codes.

If I click the plus icon, I can add a verification code using the setup key. So when you create a two-factor authentication code or what is called a verification code, because it may be a third factor, maybe some other factor in the list that will show up as a string of characters and you can paste that in here. But you are also able to simply choose a QR code image if the site has displayed a QR code. What's great is that right clicking or control clicking on that code lets macOS recognize that it is a verification code and then gives you the ability to set it up that way. So here I have all of those options to add verification codes and keep those in my passwords app as well.

Wi-fi is, as you might imagine, a way to keep track of different Wi-Fi networks. So if I click on one of these, I can see the name of the network, I can see the password and I can see that there is a password, and then I can actually create, with the QR code option, a QR code for this network that gives anyone the ability to scan and connect to that Wi-Fi network. You also I love this get to see the security for that specific network. So this is set up with WPA2 personal my personal network is set up with WPA3. And you can forget the networks here. You can also share them and you'll notice that the share icon is a full on share sheet icon, meaning that you can send it as an email, a message, anything like that, and when you do, it will just send as the credentials themselves. It's not any kind of special file or anything like that. Now, we don't currently have any security options here, but if we click on more about security recommendations, it will take us to a website that talks about the way that it helps you to keep track of whether something has been compromised. So in this case, if there's a data leak or some other thing, then it will help you to keep track of the fact that a data leak has happened, and the way that Apple does this again, you can read more about it involves differential privacy techniques that make it so that you are not having your specific passwords sent to Apple, but instead it's a comparison to the password that you actually have. Again, the best way for you to kind of understand is by reading through this documentation about how Apple notifies you of security issues. And then, of course, as I mentioned, deleted is the place where you have your deleted passwords.

On the left here we can also hit the plus icon to create shared passwords and pass keys. So if you have logins with multiple people, this is the way to set that up. If we click continue, we can create a group. We would call it family. The Micah Twitter account is currently the owner and then I can add people and I would type in a name like myself. I'm not going to click on that because it will reveal some of my personal information, but I can go ahead and click create with just me here and then add those people later. And then what I want to do is find the accounts that would be shared between people. So that might be, you know, a Netflix account, for example, or if you all use the greeting card service together, then maybe that's one that gets shared amongst the group. So now this password and this username and this website is shared amongst the group, and by clicking on this, I can also see that there aren't currently any issues with this specific password. Everything's good to go there and everything looks nice From that point on. I am able to then use this along with anyone else that I add to my family group, and they will also have access to these passwords.

The other thing that I wanted to show you is that if you go to the all page, you may see an import passwords option at the top of your list. This gives you the ability to export your passwords from a different location and import them here. It does need to be a CSV file, and I strongly recommend that after you export your passwords if you're going to do that and you create that CSV file immediately import them into the passwords app and then delete that CSV file. You don't want it sticking around because it is an unencrypted version of your passwords. That's not good to have anywhere. Get rid of it quick after you've imported.

Lastly, I want to mention that this does have end-to-end encryption with iCloud. So as it syncs across your different devices, it'll show up on all of your other Apple devices as saved passwords, but all of it is end-to-end encrypted. And then, for those of you who don't have macOS, who are tuning into Hands on Mac for the times when I talk about iOS and other things, I want to mention that in your settings, under help, there is the option to set up passwords on a Windows PC, so at any point you can learn about using the iCloud passwords app on your Windows computer. So, folks, that is a look at the Passwords app in macOS Sequoia the ability to create passwords, add passkeys, sign in with Apple and manage those credentials across your different sites and accounts. It's a really full featured app that I think they've done a good job of keeping simple to a certain extent, where you don't feel overwhelmed by what you're able to do with it, but it's all there kind of in it within the seams.

So great work to the team who worked on passwords and great work to all of you who tuned into this episode of Hands on Mac. We appreciate you being here. I'll be back next week with another episode, but until then it is time to say goodbye. Remember, email me, micah at twittv, and to those of you tuning in to the version that is available to the public, I should remind you twittv slash club, twit to get ad-free versions of all of our shows, including this one. And now we've brought back our yearly plan to those of you who've asked for it. So, monthly or yearly, we'd love to have you in the club. Thanks so much and goodbye.