Introduction
In the latest release Apple has made some big steps forward with the integration of Apple Keychain and macOS/iOS: “iOS 15 Includes Built-In Password Authenticator With Autofill, Replacing Google Authenticator and Authy”. Now the passwords are well managed, quite well integrated in the system, and most important: you can also add the 2FA without use third-party apps. And i think this feature is very useful, at the moment I enabled both 1Password and Apple Keychain 2FA (yes you can use the same code generator from a website/service on two password managers), because login/fill with faceID or touchID is faster than use 1Password. Inside the apps and Safari you can login without open 1Password and all are already integrated in the browser.
The only trouble with the Apple password manager is “where the f* are my passwords saved”? , I don’t know how to say, but it’s a bit hard understand where you can easily find your saved passwords.
Since there isn’t an app called i.e. “Passwords” but you have to open the Keychain app and inside there’re all the certificates/passwords/mess/etc… so Apple added the “passwords section” inside the System Preferences (on both macOS/iOS), but it takes many steps to open and use it, becoming annoying. So I tried a fix/workaround with the Shortcut app.
The shortcuts
I simply made two -quite- stupid shortcuts that, with a tap, they launch the passwords section. Maybe this could be useful also for you, so I want to share them:
On iOS (video of the shortcut):
You can create the Shortcut on iOS by simply add the action “Open URL” and use this callback URL as URL to be opened:
prefs:root=PASSWORDS&path=PASSWORDS
Save it with the name/icon/color you prefer and you can “add to Home Screen” it to have on your Springboard (Home Screen).
But this shortcut won’t work on macOS, where you need this shortcut (video):
On macOS you can do the same but it’s a bit more tricky, you have to add an action to Open File, then choose this file path:
Edit: there’s a new path for Ventura (read the comment):
/System/Library/PreferencePanes/Passwords.prefPane
Old path for pre-macOS 13:
/Library/Apple/System/Library/CoreServices/SafariSupport.bundle/Contents/PreferencePanes/Passwords.prefPane
And then select open in: “System Preferences” from the app list, then add a “Stop Shortcut” action (without it I get an error from Shortcut):
Then you can add it to your Dock by simply right click on the Shortcut and select “Add to Dock”
Conclusion
Can this replace 1Password?
Hmm maybe…but at the moment I wouldn’t ditch my 1Password plan because I use it also to store a family vault, software licenses, etc… (yes, I know that all of these things can be done via Keychain on macOS, but I still prefer to keep it at the moment).
If you aren’t a heavy 1Password user, and you want to save some monthly costs, this is surely a better way to manage and use your password with the Apple built-in system.