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Passkeys promise to replace passwords as a more secure and convenient login method. But they still have a long way to go before fulfilling that promise. That's because passkeys are often way too difficult to set up on one device, let alone all the devices you use.
The industry itself offers no standard or consistent method to save and store passkeys, so each company has cobbled together its own process, which may or may not work.
Also: What are passkeys really? The simple explanation - for anyone tired of passwords
By far, the biggest obstacle to using passkeys is trying to synchronize them across all the browsers and devices that you use (see ZDNET's detailed comparison of syncable to non-syncable passkeys). Just because you save a passkey on your Android phone, for example, doesn't mean that it will be available on your Windows PC, or vice versa.
That's why I turn to a password manager as a central way to save and sync passkeys across all the browsers and devices I use. What if you don't have a password manager? Well, there's another route, at least if you use Chrome on your computers and mobile devices.
How to sync passkeys in your Chrome browser
To help you store and synchronize your passwords and passkeys, Google provides its own password manager. The Google Password Manager is not only built into Android but is also accessible through Chrome on any platform. That means you can sync your passkeys across Chrome on Android, in Windows, on a Mac, and on an iPhone or iPad.
How does this all work? Here's how I tried it across all my PCs and mobile devices.
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