In most circumstances, it's wise to avoid sharing passwords. However, you might still wish to do so at times, such as sharing subscriptions with friends or paying bills with other members of your household.

When you do have to share passwords, it's important to do it safely. We'll show you how.

First: Do You Even Need to Share Passwords?

Before you go through the work of sharing a password safely, you should first determine if you even need to share it. If you're looking to share access to a streaming account, for example, you might be able to take advantage of the family plan options that a lot of services offer.

For example, instead of sharing your Spotify password with someone and having to take turns using the account, you can sign up for one of the Spotify Premium subscription options. These work out to be cheaper for each person than paying for their own Premium subscription, and everyone has their own login so there's no need to share passwords.

Spotify Subscription Type

This also applies for services like Amazon Prime, which let you share some benefits with another account without the need to share your password. Of course, it's not an option in all cases.

Prepare to Share Your Passwords Safely

Before you share any passwords, you should take a few steps for your security.

First, remember the importance of setting unique passwords for every account. If you're planning to share a password that you also use elsewhere, you should first change that password to something unique. That way, if the password is stolen or otherwise compromised, other accounts aren't at risk.

Second is that your email password is of the upmost importance. If someone breaks into your email account, they can use access to your inbox to request password resets for your other accounts and thus lock you out of them. Thus, you should never share your email password.

It's also a good idea to set up two-factor authentication on all your accounts. Having 2FA enabled will make it more difficult for the person you're sharing the password with to set up the account (since they'll need a code from you). But 2FA will also protect the account in case your password leaks beyond who you shared it with.

Twitter Two Factor Login

Due to the nature of passwords, it's impossible to share them with guaranteed security. Once someone has your password, they could take a screenshot of it or write it down in an insecure location. If you must share passwords, only do so with people you fully trust.

How to Share Passwords Safely Using a Password Manager

When you have to share passwords, the safest way to do so is using a password manager. Since password managers encrypt your passwords, they're a much safer way to share than unencrypted communication like email. Using them requires both participants to have an account with the same service.

Sharing One-to-One Passwords With LastPass

If you don't want to pay for a password manager and only need to share passwords with one other person, LastPass is a great option. While you have to upgrade to Premium to share passwords with multiple people, one-to-one sharing is free.

After signing up for LastPass, you'll need to add passwords to your account. You should use the password manager's secure generation tool to make unique, complex passwords for this.

Related: Password Manager Features You Need to Know About

Once you're happy with the password you want to share, right-click on it in your vault and choose Share. This will bring up a new window, where you should enter the email address of the person who will receive the password. Make sure you type it correctly so you don't give someone else access!

LastPass Share Password Item

If you leave the Allow Recipient to View Password box unchecked, the other person will have access to the password, but won't be able to see or copy it. While this seems more secure, it will only protect your password from inexperienced people. It's trivial to use the Inspect tool in your browser, or a bit of JavaScript, to reveal the password behind the dots.

Once you hit Share, the recipient will get an email letting them know that you shared a password with them. If they already use LastPass, they can accept the shared data and access it in their vault. If not, they'll be prompted to make an account before they can use what you sent them.

To use your password, the recipient just needs to proceed as they normally would with a password manager. After clicking the LastPass extension icon, they will see the website you shared offered as an option. Clicking it will fill the credentials so they can log in.

Password Manager Login Fill

To see what passwords you've shared or had shared with you, click Sharing Center on the left sidebar of the LastPass website.

Choose Shared with Others along the top to review actively shared items. Using the buttons on the right, you can change the credentials, manage who it's shared with, resend the invitation, or revoke the shared data. Of course, Shared with Me lets you see everything other people have sent to you via LastPass.

LastPass Shared Passwords

With the free plan, you can only share each password with one person at a time, but you can share different passwords with different people.

Sharing One-to-Many Passwords

What if you need to share one or more passwords with several people? In most cases, this requires you to upgrade to a premium password manager. In instances where you want to make many passwords available to trusted friends and family, password manager folders with these services are a good option.

If you and the people you're sharing with already use a particular password manager, this is easy. For example, in a 1Password Family account, you can set up multiple vaults, choose which members can access each vault, then move/copy passwords to those shared vaults as you see fit.

This makes it an easy way to share your Netflix password with your spouse and kids, for example.

1Password Share Password Vault

For people outside your immediate family/friends circle, you can also invite guests (like a babysitter) to view information in one vault. If you'd like another option, Bitwarden's Free Organization Plan lets you share unlimited passwords between two users. This makes it a good solution for couples.

Related: Reasons You Should Be Using a Password Manager

Never Share Passwords Using These Methods

We've looked at the safest way to share passwords. While it's also semi-safe to share passwords using an encrypted attachment in an email, this is pretty clunky and will probably take longer than setting up a password manager account.

Here are a few insecure ways of sharing passwords and why you should avoid them:

  • Email or SMS texting: These communication methods have no security, so your message is readable to anyone who might intercept it.
  • Sticky notes or other written form: While OK in theory if kept in your home, someone could lose the sticky note or leave it out for a guest to steal.
  • Spreadsheets or text files: Storing passwords in plain text like this means that anyone who came across the file would be able to access them all.
  • Instant messengers: If your account got hacked, the attacker would likely scan through your messaging history for anything resembling a password. And anyone who has access to your devices could read through your conversation history and find them.

Related: Common Password Mistakes That'll Likely Get You Hacked

Even when using an encrypted messenger like Signal, there are risks to sharing passwords. If the recipient has notifications turned on, someone might be able to oversee it since the password displays in plain text (compared to being concealed by default with password manager sharing). You can delete the message after the other person reads it, but they might copy the password elsewhere, defeating the purpose.

Ultimately, remember that sharing passwords always comes with some form of risk. Sharing your password with your significant other today could turn sour if you suddenly break up. And sharing passwords to accounts like email or Facebook means that another person can read messages that you've exchanged with other people.

Since whoever you were talking to likely assumes that these messages were private, they might be hurt if they learn that you allowed someone else to access your account and read what they said to you.

If you ever fall out with someone that you've shared a password with, you should immediately change it to prevent them from accessing the account. This is why it's crucial not to use the same password everywhere.

Share Passwords Wisely

We've looked at the best method for sharing passwords when you absolutely must. As long as you've taken steps to protect yourself and trust the recipient, you can be relatively safe. Just remember that sharing a password lets someone pose as you for whatever account you provide.

If this was your first taste of using a password manager, you should integrate them into your online life fully next.