I tested Keeper’s password management apps in Chrome on an iPhone.
Credential Capture and Replay
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Like most password managers, Keeper captures passwords while you log in to secure sites. To start, log in as usual and then accept Keeper’s prompt to save those credentials. Alternatively, you can click the Keeper icons in every username and password field to create a new login. Keeper opens a new window to generate passwords, which slows down the creation process.
When entering existing credentials into my vault, I found that Keeper’s browser extension was inconsistent. On some websites, my credentials were automatically entered into the forms, without any prompting from me. Other times, I needed to click on the Keeper logo within the credential form field to prompt Keeper to fill in or create new credentials.
I’ll get into this further in the form-filling section, but Keeper’s browser extension didn’t always load identification data into fillable web forms, which was disappointing. If you have trouble entering credentials in Keeper, right-click the field, scroll down to Keeper, then select the correct credential to enter. While I like that there are several ways to successfully fill in this data without copying and pasting, the autofill experience was still somewhat clunky. I did not encounter similar issues when using the iOS app to fill in passwords and personal information.
Password Generator
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Keeper’s password generator creates a new password or passphrase whenever you create a new record. If you log in with an existing password, you simply overwrite the generated one. By default, it generates 20-character passwords that include all character types (letters, numbers, and symbols) and meet our password recommendations.
Storage and Form Filling
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You can attach a file or photo to any password entry in Keeper or create an entry to hold the attachment. With a free account, you can store five such attachments. If you want more storage space, you’ll need to pay an additional $12.49 per year for an additional 10GB of secure online storage, $49.99 for 50GB, or $99.99 per year for 100 GB.
Notably, Keeper retains every version of every credential entry. You can scroll back through every password you’ve used for a given site and even restore an old version.
Keeper can also store and use personal data and credit card information to fill out web forms, but, as mentioned earlier in the review, this feature was a little inconsistent during the evaluation period. On some websites, Keeper’s browser extension needed my permission to fill in information in form fields. On others, the information was populated in the fields automatically.
Keeper doesn’t let you create multiple identities. Instead, you can only create a single identity, but you can save information in several different kinds of templates to fill in online forms.
Sharing and Emergency Access
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Keeper makes it very easy to securely share passwords with others, which is helpful when you share an online account with family members or close friends. Two ways to share your passwords are via email access or Keeper’s One-Time Share feature. If you click the Share button in a password entry in your Keeper vault, you can enter the email addresses of the people you want to grant access to the credential. You can also determine whether others can edit, share, edit and share, or simply view the credential. You can also transfer ownership of the credential to someone else.
Keeper’s One-Time Share feature cuts out the middleman, letting you generate links to credentials and deliver them via Airdrop, email, QR codes, or SMS. Access to the link is restricted to the recipient’s device, and you can set the link’s expiration. Even if a stranger gets hold of the link, they can’t access it because they don’t have the original recipient’s device.
You can create a shared folder if you want to share multiple passwords with other people. You can also limit the extent to which others can control your credentials. To start, decide whether each person can add or remove others’ access. You also control whether other users can edit or share each record. A small icon distinguishes shared folders from others.
In the event of death or incapacitation, you may want to grant another person emergency access to your credentials. To access these settings, go to Account and tap Emergency Access. From there, you can enter the email addresses of up to five trusted individuals with a Keeper account. For each entry, you set a timeout period from zero to three months. If one of your appointees requests access while you’re still alive, you get a notification and an opportunity to revoke their access.
