Family sharing is finally rolling out for Google Password Manager

Summary

• Google’s Password Manager now supports family sharing, allowing secure sharing of login credentials within your family group.
• The feature was announced in February 2024.
• One-time password sharing is not available yet, but Google’s integration with Chrome and Android remains a standout feature.

While not perfect, Google has improved its password manager in recent years, making it a viable (and free) alternative to the best password managers. Plus, Google’s offering stands out because of its deep integration in Chrome and Android. Back in February 2024, Google announced family sharing support for its Password Manager, ensuring you can securely and easily share login credentials with your loved ones. Three months later, the feature appears to be finally rolling out.

As spotted by Android Authority, Google seems to have released family sharing of saved passwords with the May 2024 Google Play services update. Do note that Google’s implementation only allows you to share passwords with members of your family group. You can’t use this feature to share login credentials with someone not a part of your Google family account.

Google has explained how the feature will work in its May 2024 Play services release notes:

With this new feature, you can now securely share your passwords with your family group in Google Password Manager. When you share a password, your family members will receive a copy of it in their Google Password Manager, ready to be used.

So, when you share a password, it will automatically show up in your family member’s password manager.

You can install the May 2024 Play system update on your phone from Settings > Security & privacy > System & updates > Google Play system update. After this, open Google’s Password Manager and see if you get a prompt about family sharing.

This seems to be a phased rollout from Google, so don’t be surprised if feature does not show up even after installing the latest Play system update.

For now, the feature only appears to be live on Android and not on Chrome for desktop, though this should change sooner rather than later.

Google also needs to make one-time password sharing easier

While family sharing is a useful addition, Google should also add a one-time password sharing option to its password manager. Right now, this is not possible, and the only workaround is to manually copy-paste and share the login credentials, which is not a safe approach.

Besides family sharing, Google is rolling out a Material You makeover to its password manager.