A different password for each account
When a site leaks its user list, those passwords get tried on email and banking sites next. A manager can make a long, random password for every account, so a leak in one place stays in that place. The manager holds the list, which is safer than a notes app or a slip of paper in a bag you take through airports.
Autofill, and fake login pages
Day to day, autofill is the part you notice. You land on a site you have saved, and the manager offers the username and password. That saves the hunt through old reset emails.
It also helps with phishing. The manager offers the password when the address matches the one it saved. A lookalike page, the kind a "your account will be closed" email sends you to, does not match, so it does not fill. Glance at the address anyway when a message is rushing you.
The same logins on your phone and your laptop
Once the manager is signed in on both, a password you save on one shows up on the other. A login you create on the train is on the computer at home, so you do not have to email it to yourself.
Public Wi-Fi, and a lost phone
Cafe and airport Wi-Fi is a bad moment to type your email password into a page you are unsure about, or to fall back on the one password you can remember because you are tired. The manager fills a saved login so you are not spelling it out where someone can watch your hands, and each account still has its own password. A VPN on that network hides which sites you open. Keeping the passwords is a separate job. The VPN page covers what a VPN does on hotel and cafe Wi-Fi.
If the phone goes missing, use the phone maker's lost-device lock if you still can. Then open the password manager on a computer you have. The logins live in the account, so you can reach your email and change the passwords that matter. Sign the lost phone out of the manager from that computer, if the account lets you, so a later unlock does not hand over the saved passwords. Make the manager's own password one you do not use anywhere else, and turn on the extra check (a code from a second device) when the app offers it.
NordPass
We recommend NordPass for everyday logins and for trips. It can generate a password, fill it on the sites you have saved, and sync those passwords between your phone and your computers. Nord Security makes it, the same company that makes NordVPN.
Visit NordPassThe provider may pay us a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you.