2024-11-02

Bitwarden Cheat Sheet

Here is quick information on how to get started with my favorite password manager and two-factor authentication (2FA) authenticator.

This old blog post of mine has some great background:

https://www.gsharratt.com/2020/03/set-up-password-manager-nice-covid-19.html

It talks about why you need a password manager in your life.  (Ignore the mention of LastPass, 1Password, and Authy.)

The password manager I recommend (free for the low tier, which is still great) is Bitwarden:

https://bitwarden.com/products/personal/

You'll install and use this on all your computers and mobile devices (phones, tablets), and your data will sync between them

The two-factor authentication (2FA) authenticator I recommend is Bitwarden Authenticator:

https://bitwarden.com/products/authenticator/

You'll install and use this on one or more of your mobile devices; if you do it on more than one, your data will NOT sync between them.  So when you add a new 2FA token, you'll have to manually add it to the Bitwarden Authenticator app on ALL of your mobile devices.

Install the password manager, Bitwarden, then get your most important accounts (especially your email account) moved into it.  Then change the passwords on those accounts to be long (say, 30 characters) and random, using the password generator in Bitwarden..

Then install the authenticator, Bitwarden Authenticator, and use it to add 2FA to your most important accounts.  (Note: A few accounts, like Google accounts, already have push 2FA, so something like Bitwarden Authenticator is optional.)  Then add 2FA on your other accounts.  Then move your other accounts into Bitwarden and change their passwords as described above.

I recommend that you add any new 2FA token not only to the Bitwarden Authenticator app on all your mobile devices, as mentioned above, but also to your Bitwarden vault, for resilience.

You'll find more instructions here: 

https://bitwarden.com/learning/getting-started-as-an-individual-user/