How to Import and Export Passwords in Google Chrome?

Chrome offers built-in password manager tool to save your passwords when you login to websites. Once saved, Chrome will autofill the passwords on login and registration forms whenever you open the website. In our earlier article, we have explained how to view and delete the saved passwords in Chrome browser. However, many users asked us how to bulk download all the passwords and upload back again. Therefore, in this article let us discuss about downloading all saved passwords from Chrome in a CSV file and uploading multiple passwords back to the browser.

Why You Need to Download and Upload Passwords in Bulk?

Google Chrome’s autofill feature helps to avoid searching for passwords every time you login to websites. However, what if you want to have a backup of them. There could be many situations you need to backup the passwords:

• You are moving from one laptop to another.
• Changing operating system (may be from Windows to Mac).
• Wanted to modify the new passwords in bulk and re-upload into Chrome.
• You feel some other administrator downloaded your passwords from Chrome and wanted to change.

If you found that your passwords are compromised with Chrome Safety Check feature or you want to update them on bulk then it’s a good idea you download or export all passwords in Excel as CSV format. You can modify the passwords and import them back into Chrome with the new passwords.

1. Export Passwords from Chrome

It’s just a simple process of using the export button in Chrome to download your saved passwords in a CSV file to local computer. Follow the steps given below:

• Go to “chrome://settings” URL on the address bar.
• Click on the “Passwords” option under “Autofill” section.

• This will take you to the Chrome password manager. You can also use the command URL “chrome://settings/passwords” directly in the Chrome address bar to go to password management section.

• Now, click on the three dots buttons against “Saved Passwords” option. You will see a “Export passwords…” button and click on it.

• Chrome will show you an export passwords prompt and click on “Export passwords” button.

• You need to enter the administrator password of your PC or Mac in order to export passwords from Chrome. This is the only security Chrome has to protect your passwords. This essentially means anyone having the administrator password of your computer can download all your passwords from Chrome browser. Enter your admin password and click ok.

• By default, Chrome will assign the file name as “Chrome Passwords” and the file format will be in comma-separated values (CSV). If required, change the file name and choose the destination folder you want to save on your computer.

• Now that you have the CSV file saved on your computer. Open it with Microsoft Excel on Windows or with Apple Numbers on Mac to see all your usernames and passwords stored in Chrome.

1.1. Export Password Option Not Available

Export passwords option was not part of Chrome versions lower than 69. However, it is a default feature in latest Chrome versions. Don’t worry, if you don’t see the “Export passwords” option in Chrome password manager. You can enable it by using Chrome experimental features. Go to “chrome://flags” command URL and search for “Password export” flag. Enable it and relaunch the browser to see the password export option is available in the settings page.

1.2. Caution with Password Download

Remember, anyone having administrator access to your PC or Mac can download the passwords from Chrome. So, when you found someone stole your credentials, the first step you should do is to change your admin password. Then you can change the passwords in Chrome by downloading the CSV file and upload back with new passwords.

Also understand that the CSV file is not password protected. This means anyone can open and get the passwords details that you have stored in Chrome. We strongly recommend to delete the CSV file after the purpose is resolved.

2. Importing Passwords in Chrome

Old Chrome versions do not have this “Import Passwords” option by default. Fortunately, latest Chrome version added this feature in the default interface. When you are ready with the import file, go back to Chrome password manager under the settings URL “chrome://settings/passwords”. Click on the three vertical dots showing against “Saved Passwords” heading. You will see an option for “Import passwords” and click on it. If you do not have any saved passwords, you will also see a “Import passwords” link which you can click.

You will see a prompt asking to select a CSV file for importing the password and click on “Select file” button.

Search and open the CSV file from your computer. Chrome will import all the passwords from the file and show you a warning to delete the file for security reasons. Check the number of passwords imported is correct as per your CSV file and click “Done” button to finish the process.

Remember, file upload will overwrite any existing entries with the same username and password for that particular website.

2.1. Enable Password Import in Chrome

If you are not seeing the “Import passwords” option in Chrome, you can enable it from flags section or from command line. This is an annoying part as other browsers like Edge, Firefox and Safari offers importing passwords in bulk from a file or from another browser.

• First close all other browser sessions as you need to relaunch the browser.
• Type the command URL “chrome://flags” in Chrome address bar and press enter.

• When you are in the flags section, Chrome will show you a warning about using experimental features on the browser.

• Below the warning section, you will see a huge list of experimental flags. Use the search box on top and search for “password import” flag.
• You will see a “Password import” flag showing with “Default” option indicating it is disabled on the browser (or you may see “Disabled”).
• Choose “Enabled” from the dropdown and relaunch the browser.

2.2. Enable Chrome Password Import from Command Line

Instead of using a flag, you can also enable password import in Chrome from command line interface. If you are on Windows, first find the location of Chrome installation folder. By default, it should be either C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application or C:\Program Files (x86) Chrome\Application. Copy the folder path from the File Explorer address bar.

Now, go to Command Prompt, type CD and paste the path of your Chrome application folder. Press enter to simply change the directory to your Chrome application folder. Now, type the following command and press enter.

chrome.exe -enable-features=PasswordImport

It should look like below in the Command Prompt.

This will relaunch your Chrome browser and go to settings page to confirm “Import” or “Import passwords” option is enabled against “Saved Passwords”.

If you are using Mac, open Terminal app and type the following command. Press enter and Chrome will relaunch with the “Import” option enabled.

/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome -enable-features=PasswordImport

You can disable password import again by using the -disable-features=PasswordImport parameter in the above Windows and Mac commands. Note that Google may remove the experimental flags with the release of new version. There are no easy options to downgrade Chrome to lower versions as Google does not allow distributing the earlier versions. You can also disable auto updating in Chrome so that you will not loose any features with the later updates.

Conclusion

We hope you have learnt how to import and export passwords in Chrome with default password manager. There are also many extensions for doing this stuff. Whether you do it on your own or use extensions, we strongly recommend to keep all the passwords safe and secure to protect your data. Also, make sure to delete the password file so that it is not misplaced and accessible to some other person using your computer.