How to Save and Protect Your Online Passwords

If you're anything like me, you've accrued a ridiculously large amount of online passwords over the years, and it's impossible to remember them all. You can use the same password for every online service, but that's far from secure. So it helps to have a way to save and protect your online passwords without making your life too complicated.

Saving and Storing Online Passwords

I used to write them all down in my daily planner, in a section reserved for specifically that purpose. But then I started to wonder what would happen if I lost my planner, and I became increasingly uncomfortable with carrying my online passwords around with me when I left the house.

My solution was to create an Excel spreadsheet in which to save and protect my online passwords. It's relatively simple to use, and I keep the file on my desktop so I can open it quickly when I need to add new online passwords, change old ones, or remind myself which password I used for a particular site.

You could also use a table in Microsoft Word to save and protect online passwords, though Excel is slightly less complicated. I don't worry about formatting the cells or anything else; I just type and go. And occasionally I'll print a copy so I never have to worry about losing it.

And finally, there are plenty of password storage software programs available. These programs store and encrypt your passwords for safekeeping, and many of them will auto-fill login information so you don't have to do it each time you visit a site. This is more secure than letting your web browser save passwords, but I prefer my system because I try to keep software out of it entirely.

Protect Your Online Passwords

1. Don't use public computers. Especially for your online banking system or anything else that needs to stay secure. Only enter online passwords when you are using your own computer or a trusted friend or family member's.

2. Encrypt your storage. Even if you aren't using a dedicated password storage program, you can still protect your online passwords. You can encrypt an Excel file, for example, to make it more difficult to steal that data should it ever fall into someone else's hands.

3. Use different passwords. Change them often, and don't use the same one for multiple web sites. This way, if someone guesses a password or steals it, they can only use it for one of your accounts rather than several of them.

4. Don't make passwords easy to change. You might not think anyone could guess the name of your first pet or the city where you were born, but it's not that difficult. Use a second, difficult password (and store it safely) as the answer to security questions. If it doesn't have anything to do with the actual question, your online passwords will be much safer.