Creating New Passwords in Dashlane (iOS, MacOS, Browser)

Creating New Passwords in Dashlane

One of the key reasons to use a password manager is their ability to generate strong passwords. A password manager will generate passwords, save them, and then later help you use them to log into your accounts. By using a password manager to generate your passwords you avoid the effort of designing your own and are guaranteed to have strong passwords on all of your accounts.

Your password manager can generate passwords for a new account, or be used to update and improve the passwords in your existing accounts.

Here’s how to generate a new password on iOS, MacOS, and with the Dashlane browser extension.

MacOS

1. Open Dashlane
2. If you’re not on the password page, click on passwords in the left side menu (Dashlane will remember the last window you were on when you open the application.
3. Click “Add New”
4. Enter the URL of the website (if it is a website) in the Website field. This will help Dashlane detect when you need to use it in the future. It also protects you against phishing attacks because if you try to use the password at a URL that is slightly different than the official one, Dashlane will recognize that you’re not at the site where the password should be used.
5. Enter the Login (user name or email usually)
6. Next to the Password field, click ‘Generate’. By default, Dashlane will create an 18-character password made up of letters (upper and lowercase) and numbers. You can specify how long you want the password to be, whether you want to incorporate symbols and if you want to avoid ambiguous characters. This is helpful when generating passwords for accounts that specify a character length (or limit) and want specific types of characters in them as well.You can create passwords as long as 40 characters and as short as 2 characters. Generally speaking, passwords start being considered ‘strong’ at 12 characters or more. We recommend using at least 12 characters for any accounts you consider important and 20 or more for critical accounts or those containing financial, deeply personal, or identity information. Since you’ll likely use Dashlane to enter the passwords for you, the extra length and security won’t be inconvenient for you so why not take advantage of the extra security?Optional step: Label this log-in with a category. This will help categorize all your passwords and log-ins, which may be necessary once you have more than 20 log-ins in Dashlane.
7. Hit “Ok”

You’re now ready to use your new password. When you return to the entry, the password will be hidden but you can copy it to your clipboard or show it if you need to.

If you have Dashlane installed on any other device or your browser, the passwords will sync automatically.

Browser Extension

1. 1. Open the Dashlane extension on your browser.
   2. Click on the “Generator” tab

You’ll see the same password generator from the application show up on the browser extension with the same default and configuration options.

You can easily copy this password and use it on any web page where you need a password. Once you enter it, Dashlane will detect that you’ve used a new password and offer to save it for you.

The next time you’ll log in, Dashlane will offer to autofill all the login and password details.

iOS

There are two methods to generate passwords on Dashlane’s iPhone app.

Method 1 (just the password)

1. Open Dashlane
2. Click “Tools” (on the footer menu)
3. Click “Password Generator”

Note: You can copy, change the password settings, or refresh for a new password if you’d like. However, Dashlane won’t remember any password generated this way unless you use it on a log-in and Dashlane asks to remember it. This method is just a quick way to generate a strong and complex password.

Method 2 (Log-in entry)

If you want to generate a password for a specific log-in or website and want to save those log-in details, method 2 is more helpful as it will save the password and log-in as an entry.

1. 1. Open Dashlane
   2. Click the “+” icon on the top right corner.
2. Click on “Add a Password”Note: Dashlane will ask what site or app you’re creating a password for and offer a list of recommendations. If the site isn’t there, you can start typing a site in and Dashlane will suggest websites.
3. Type in the site or app you’re creating the password for, then hit “Next”
   Note: Dashlane will populate the entry with the website/app and use your email address as the default username. If your username is different, make sure you change it here.
4. Under ‘Password’, click ‘Generate’Note: You’ll be taken to the same screen on MacOS to create a password. The defaults are a little different on the iOS app. The password length is 12-characters long and symbols and similar characters are enabled. Of course, you can change any of these settings as you generate the password.
5. Click ‘Done’ when you’re finished creating your password.
6. Click ‘Save’ to save the entry with Dashlane

Dashlane will now detect when you’re logging into the site or app based on the entry you just created and autofill the log-in and password details.

You’re ready to start logging in with Dashlane!

Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash