What is Password Manager in Thunderbird and how to is it?
Remembering all passwords for all the sites and accounts can get tiresome and yet it is important that you manage them with attention.
Password Manager in Thunderbird
With Thunderbird, you get an easy and effective way to manage the passwords that you use to login to any account or outgoing server. There’s an inbuilt password manager in Thunderbird that stores the username and password securely and lets you view/edit/delete them as per your needs. This makes it much easier for the users who use the client for various accounts and servers without fussing about the dozens of passwords.
The way it works in Thunderbird is very similar to how it works with modern browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. When you access a server, Thunderbird asks you to enter the login credentials and then gives you an option to let it save those credentials so you can use them again in future if need be.
How to View the Password Manager and the Credentials it Saves
All of these credentials get saved locally on the Thunderbird that you always have access for.
Go to:
- Tools → Options
- Security → Passwords
And then click “Saved Passwords” to bring up the Thunderbird Password Manager. Here you can see the entire list of the sites and servers that Thunderbird has saved the login credentials for (including username).
The password field of each entry is hidden by default. You can click on “Show passwords” to make the passwords visible. This is only temporary and when you close this window, the client automatically hides them again.
The search bar helps you look for any particular account or username or server, which is useful in case you have a long list of these accounts, like in an office computer.
Edit the Usernames and Passwords
You can also edit, delete, or copy this information from each entry in the list. To get those options, right click on any entry and you can see the following options:
- Copy Username
- Edit Username
- Copy Password
- Edit Password
To delete any entry, click once on it to highlight and then click ‘Remove’ at the bottom of the password manager window. You can also click “Remove All” to remove all entries.
Protect Your Password Manager with a Password
One security concern regarding this can be that anyone use has access to your computer even for a minute can easily view the passwords stored here. But the good news is that you can protect your password manager with another master password that only you know. This master password doesn’t get saved anywhere. If you ever forget it, you can remove the master password easily but that would also remove all the other saved passwords for safety reasons.
To set your master password, go to Tools → Options. Then select the ‘Security’ panel and then ‘Passwords’ tab within the panel. Put a check mark next to the “Use a Master Password”.
Click on “Change Master Passwords,” and if you are setting it up for the first time, the “Current Password” will be disabled (showing “not set”). Enter your new password. Use the Password quality meter to ensure that your password is difficult enough so no one can guess it.
Finally, click “OK.”
Now anytime you want to see the saved passwords in the password manager, you’d have to enter your master password first.
If you forget the master password, you can reset it through Error Console option but doing so will remove all the saved passwords.
Go to Tools → Developer tools → Error Console and paste the following command: “openDialog(“chrome://pippki/content/resetpassword.xul”) and click “Evaluate”.