How to share passwords at work, at home, or on the go

Most likely, you and everyone you know will need to create an account with a password for something online. Whenever you do, it's absolutely crucial that you're using very strong and unique passwords, and that you use great caution when sharing those passwords (or any sensitive information) with others. 

With a single stolen password, a bad actor could steal your identity, your money, or hijack your accounts and do other nefarious things. Because of that, it's imperative to understand how to share passwords safely.

The sharing of passwords is often necessary. You might be in a business that requires the sharing of accounts. Or maybe you have a Spotify family account and you want to share the necessary information with your child who just went off to college. Maybe you have clients who must access data or files within your network. 

The good news is that safely sharing such information via modern password managers (such as Bitwarden) is much easier than you might think. Let's take a look at some of the different scenarios you might run into and how to share passwords for each.

The first type of sharing we'll explore is one that requires considerable security because the passwords being shared might give access to highly sensitive information (such as project details, company/client records, or even proprietary code). 

When you consider the best way to share passwords on this level, you should default to something like Bitwarden Organizations. What this feature does is allow you to create Collections that contain specific vault entries and then share those collections within an Organization.

For example, you could create an Organization called TeamX and then create a Collection called Accounts. In the Accounts Collection, you could create vault entries for all the login information your team needs to access the various files, folders, and data they require. Once you've created the Organization and added a Collection, you can then share that Collection with the team. This feature (Figure 1) even allows you to control the type of access the team members have to the vault items (User, Manager, Admin, Owner, or Custom). 

For anyone needing to know how to share passwords at the business level, this is the route you should take.

The next level of sharing is still important (and requires care) but may not require that you go to the lengths of creating Organizations and Collections. If you're just sharing credentials for, say Spotify or another streaming service family account, Bitwarden has another handy feature built in. 

This feature is called Bitwarden Send and allows you to securely send sensitive information (such as usernames/passwords for an account) in such a way that you have control over how long the share is valid, how many times the share can be accessed, and when the share will be deleted. Bitwarden Send allows you to securely send files or text and even add notes (Figure 2). Once you've created the send, you can copy the link and share it with whoever needs the information.

One very handy aspect of Bitwarden Send is that once you create a send, it will remain listed in your Desktop or Mobile app, so you can easily access and re-share it at a later date.

Bitwarden also offers a Families plan that will let you have a specific Families organization that allows a total of six users to store and share passwords in Bitwarden. This is a great way to not only share passwords, but help make sure that every family member practices excellent password habits.

One thing to keep in mind is that Organizations are not limited to business purposes. Although you’ll need a paid account to use the feature, you can always create an Organization for family and one for friends and then create various collections within. For example, you could create an Organization called Family and then create a collection for adults and one for children (because children have no need to access accounts such as your bank account). 

Bitwarden Send is a handy way to share a one-off vault entry with a client or team member. 

If you're constantly on the go, Bitwarden's mobile app includes the Send feature and can also interact with Collections. Note that Organizations must be set up from the Bitwarden Web App.

In the end, once you know how to share passwords with your clients, co-workers, friends, and family, you'll find you no longer have to worry about sending that sensitive information via an insecure method. 

As far as pricing is concerned, to gain access to the Organizations feature, you'll either need a Families plan (which is only $3.33/month for six total users) or one of the two Business plans (starting at $3.00/month/user).

Ready to start sharing passwords securely with Bitwarden? Keep your team and company colleagues safe by starting a 7-day free business trial, or register today for a free individual account.