Microsoft Authenticator gets a password manager: How to set it up

When it comes to keeping your various logins across the internet secure, few tools are as useful as a password manager. When combined with two-factor authentication, a password manager can really help you lock down your accounts. Perhaps it comes as little surprise, then, to see Microsoft announce that it's bringing a password manager to its Authenticator app.

Not only that, but the Microsoft Authenticator app on iOS and Android will also be getting autofill capabilities that can work across devices. As explained on Microsoft's community website, this functionality is only available as a public preview to those using Microsoft accounts for the time being and isn't live for Azure AD work and school accounts yet.

From the way Microsoft explains it, it seems that this functionality is fairly straightforward. Designating Microsoft Authenticator as an autofill provider on your mobile device will prompt the app to offer to save your passwords when you enter them on a site or in an app. Using your Microsoft account, passwords are synced between devices, meaning that they're available in Microsoft Edge on desktop. You can even access them in Chrome using the new Microsoft Autofill extension.

To start using this functionality, you'll first need to open the Authenticator app, then go into "Settings," and under the "Beta" heading turn the "Autofill" toggle on. The Passwords tab will then appear at the bottom of the app – select it and either sign in with the Microsoft account you want to sync passwords from or sync the passwords from a Microsoft account you've already signed into with the Authenticator app.

From there, all you need to do is make Authenticator your default autofill provider on your phone. On iOS, that can be done by opening "Settings," searching for and selecting "Autofill Passwords," and then selecting Microsoft Authenticator. On Android, the process is much the same, as you'll open "Settings," search for "Autofill," select "Auto-fill service," then tap "Auto-fill service" on the next screen before finally selecting Microsoft Authenticator.

In order to use Autofill within the Microsoft Authenticator app, you need to be running iOS 12 or above or Android 6 or above on your phone. It sounds like Microsoft is looking to collect feedback from Microsoft account users before rolling out this functionality to its enterprise Azure users, so we'll let you know when the feature expands to more people in the future.