Why a password manager helps
You remember one password, the one that opens the manager. It holds a different password for every site and types it when the address matches.
A different password for each site
When a shop is broken into, the email and password you used there leave with the stolen list. If that same pair also opens your mail, your airline account, and your bank, one leak opens all of them. A password manager stores a long password you would never memorize, a different one for each login.
The password you do memorize is the one for the manager. Write a copy down and keep it somewhere that is not the phone, the way you keep a spare house key off the keyring.
Phishing
A phishing page copies a login form and hosts it on an address that only looks right. Typed passwords go to whoever built the copy. A password manager fills a saved login when the address matches the one it stored. On the lookalike, the field stays empty. Read the address before you type anything by hand.
Autofill
Autofill is the manager putting the saved username and password into the form. On a phone that is a prompt over the keyboard. On a laptop it is a small menu in the field. If the prompt never shows up, check the address again before you type.
The same list on each device
Save a password on the laptop and it shows up on the phone once both are signed into the same account. Change it in one place and the other devices follow. You still unlock the manager on the device in your hand, with its password or with a fingerprint if you turned that on.
Public Wi-Fi and a lost phone
Hotel and cafe Wi-Fi is a shared network. Encrypting that network is a VPN's job, covered on why a VPN. On that same network the manager fills the real site, so you are less likely to hand a bank password to a page that only looks familiar.
If the phone goes missing, the passwords live in the account. Open the vault on a laptop, change the logins that matter, and lock the phone from Apple's or Google's find-my page if you still can. A password written on a boarding pass leaves with the bag.
NordPass
NordPass is the password manager we link to. Nord Security makes it, the same company behind NordVPN. Their pages describe a generator for unique passwords, autofill on the saved site, and sync across the devices where you install the app. The plan and what is included are on their site, and those details change, so read them there before you pay. We do not rank password managers.
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