Try Managing Your Passwords Right from the Sidebar!

[Isabella]

Exciting news! We're testing passwords in the sidebar in Nightly 138—a new way to access and manage your saved passwords without interrupting your flow. No need to open a new tab or window to look up a password—just open the sidebar, and your logins are right where you need them, when you need them.

How to Enable It:

1️⃣ Update to the latest Firefox Nightly (138).
2️⃣ Go to Settings > Firefox Labs and follow the instructions to enable Passwords in the Sidebar.

The following video demonstrates how to enable the feature:

We’d love to hear what you think! Your feedback will help shape the future of this feature.

We’re especially interested in hearing about:
1️⃣ On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied are you with having access to your saved passwords in the sidebar? (1 = Very dissatisfied, 5 = Very satisfied, or I don’t use the sidebar to access my passwords)
2️⃣ On a scale of 1 to 5, to what extent do you agree with this statement: "Managing passwords in the sidebar easier than other ways in Firefox"? (1 = Strongly disagree, 5 = Strongly agree, or I don’t use the sidebar for managing passwords)
3️⃣ On a scale of 1 to 5, does having passwords in the sidebar make you more or less likely to save passwords in Firefox? (1 = Much less likely, 5 = Much more likely)

(Please note: the feature is currently available in English only in Nightly, with gradual rollout to additional locales planned.)

[s_hentzschel]

Can the performance be improved and / or the view be cached? I have 822 saved passwords. And it takes about three seconds until the entries becomes visible. This is on a MacBook Pro with M1 Pro, that's not the slowest device. It also takes so long every time I switch between the sidebars. I would expect that there is no delay at all after the passwords were loaded once. The about:logins page is much faster.

Also, the font sizes of the labels ("Website", "Username", "Password") are very small on macOS, making it difficult to read.

[Isabella]

Thanks for your feedback! Performance optimizations would definitely be something we’d explore if we move forward with a broader rollout. Appreciate the note on font size as well.

A few follow up questions:

1️⃣ On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied are you with having access to your saved passwords in the sidebar? (1 = Very dissatisfied, 5 = Very satisfied, or I don’t use the sidebar to access my passwords)
2️⃣ On a scale of 1 to 5, to what extent do you agree with this statement: "Managing passwords in the sidebar easier than other ways in Firefox"? (1 = Strongly disagree, 5 = Strongly agree, or I don’t use the sidebar for managing passwords)
3️⃣ On a scale of 1 to 5, does having passwords in the sidebar make you more or less likely to save passwords in Firefox? (1 = Much less likely, 5 = Much more likely)

[s_hentzschel]

It would feel wrong for me to rate how satisfied or dissatisfied I am, as I am generally not a sidebar user and therefore not in the target group for this feature. So I won't use it, but I can imagine that it is a good feature for other users as soon as the performance problems are solved.

[zade]

Things I noticed:

• All the controls jump to the left after a second when the passwords load adding a scrollbar
• The search box doesn't auto-focus when I click the button to open the passwords menu, even though I will always want to search when I open it
• The cards are pretty large, and take up a lot of vertical room, which makes searching through passwords pretty hard when you have several similar ones for a site - maybe move the edit button into the same row as the website address?
• The huge orange 'View Alert' thing makes it seem like my passwords have been leaked, or something bad has happened, when it's just telling me to add a username.
• The passwords panel colours look weirdly dark when I have macos transparency enabled (widget.macos.titlebar-blend-mode.behind-window and browser.theme.native-theme), and comparing to about:logins, this is even more noticeable
• The passwords take a good couple seconds to load when you open the panel
• The copy buttons are placed inconsistently for the password and username fields, and the separated show password button feels odd (compared to the copy button which is combined with the main password/username field)
• Icons are missing in three dot dropdown, compared to main passwords page (see attachment)

[Isabella]

Thanks for the detailed feedback @zade! Performance optimizations and UI refinements, are definitely things we’d explore further if we move forward with a broader rollout. This kind of input is super helpful.

A few follow up questions:

1️⃣ On a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied are you with having access to your saved passwords in the sidebar? (1 = Very dissatisfied, 5 = Very satisfied, or I don’t use the sidebar to access my passwords)
2️⃣ On a scale of 1 to 5, to what extent do you agree with this statement: "Managing passwords in the sidebar easier than other ways in Firefox"? (1 = Strongly disagree, 5 = Strongly agree, or I don’t use the sidebar for managing passwords)
3️⃣ On a scale of 1 to 5, does having passwords in the sidebar make you more or less likely to save passwords in Firefox? (1 = Much less likely, 5 = Much more likely)

[S2000]

I haven't tested it, but judging by the screen recording above... I love it!

It's almost revolutionary compared to the current options to access passwords. Perhaps it might even push me to give the new sidebar a go...

Nevertheless, I think absolute perfection would be reached if the sidebar would automatically scroll the logins to the one(s) matching the URL of the active website! It would be a joy, especially if you have a lot of entries, to have an almost-one-click solution! Besides, you don't really need (most of the times) ALL logins, just the corresponding ones. If it can't find a match, then it would start at the top of the list.

Also I'm not sure if it's already the case, since again I haven't tested, but it could be a good thing to require a verification, if configured, such as the master password or biometric login, before showing the logins...

As for the numbers in question, I'd say respectively I don't use the sidebar to access my passwords (yet), 6 (or 5 if you prefer 🙂) and 3 (it would stay the same).

[myspace]

This is not a feature I would've asked for but I'm rather enjoying it. Gives me another reason to use the sidebar. 

[jamieq123]

I like it and am using it. I would give it a 5/5 but passwords are painfully slow and that is a huge frustration for me. I also feel like a need the ability to add notes to passwords, everything is a big clutter right now, hard to distinguish different logins, what they are for etc.

E.g., if I'm looking for a particular Gmail login, I don't know what to search for. "Google" gives way too many results; "gmail" not enough. I need to know to search for "accounts.google.com" or something. A searchable note, "my developer gmail" would solve this.

[thomasp]

My problem with password managers is that I can't seem to find one that works with ios and Windows platforms. I got excited about how Apple's iCloud Password manager now works with Firefox. Then I find this only works with Mac, not my Windows 11 laptop.  Are you guys working on a solution for this?

[stacyjasper]

I’ve been struggling to find a password manager that seamlessly works across both iOS and Windows. I was hopeful when I heard that Apple’s iCloud Password Manager now supports Firefox, but it turns out this feature is only available on Mac—not on my Windows 11 laptop. Is there any plan to expand compatibility to Windows in the future?

[Maupertuis]

one little bug(though i suppose bugzilla would be a better platform, but it's miniscule), for empty fields, there shouldn't be a field to copy. i have a field sans username, for example.

[Erwan]

1 = Very dissatisfied, I don't use Firefox to save my passwords because I don't want anyone to have access to them through my PC.

1 = Much less likely

What we need is a special password that locks all saved passwords (including readability) and nothing is activated until it is entered. Currently, the master password acts as an annoying pop-up at startup that prevents you from working quickly.

[s_hentzschel]

> 1 = Very dissatisfied, I don't use Firefox to save my passwords because I don't want anyone to have access to them through my PC.

Nobody but you has access to your passwords if you save your passwords in Firefox.

> What we need is a special password that locks all saved passwords (including readability)

The passwords are already protected through your OS authentication.

> Currently, the master password acts as an annoying pop-up at startup

Also not true, except you use Sync. But then it's expected.

[Erwan62]

This is false, anyone behind my PC can see saved passwords and especially see which websites have a pre-saved password via the "saved passwords" menu in Firefox. The only way to protect yourself from this is to program a "master password", but this option has very big inconveniences.

[kxra]

I hope that this means we might see the return of Lockwise across multiple devices: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/return-and-improve-lockwise-password-manager/idc-p/37342/highli...

As I said there, Lockwis was

missing features like saving arbitrary text notes/memos with a set of credentials (recovery keys, pin numbers, etc)

while bitwarden

and had better password generation options.

Plus it would be possible to monetize, as bitwarden and others do,

functionality like credential sharing, or file attachments service like the now-sunset Firefox Send.

I also see that this can be tested on Firefox Beta using the `browser.contextual-password-manager.enabled` flag in `about:config` (sadly, there's no official flatpak for Firefox Developer edition, based on nightly)