Apple’s latest iPhone software update, iOS 18, is out today and it brings with it a new app: Passwords. For the first time, Apple is taking your phone’s ability to store login credentials and putting them into a standalone app. It could help fix the terrible passwords millions of people have.

After years of being told to create unique, strong passwords for every website and app you use, you probably fall into one of two camps. Those who are fully committed to the password manager life, or those who still use “123456” on every other website.

Apple’s new encrypted Passwords app is automatically included with iOS 18 and is a public evolution of Keychain and password storage capabilities. Keychain, which has been around for over a decade, no longer has a prominent place in the iPhone’s settings, and details previously stored there are moved into the new app.

The launch of the password manager app, which will also be available on macOS Sequoia and iPadOS 18, could improve people’s relationship with their passwords, but it could also pose, to varying degrees, a challenge to existing password managers.

“This move makes the app more visible to lay users and educates them on this secure method of storing and managing passwords,” said Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk of security firm Mysk. “You’ll have a standard password manager pre-installed on your device, offering end-to-end encryption when syncing data between devices.”

New passwords

The Passwords app has a fairly simple design. Six different tiles are presented when you open the app on an iPhone: All, Passkeys, Codes, Wi-Fi, Security, and Deleted. These are essentially the main features of the app, allowing you to store any type of data within the relevant sections. The security section includes controls that can identify weak and exposed passwords.

“This will definitely boost the adoption of this pre-installed app and strengthen user security,” Bakry and Mysk say, adding that it presents the stored data “in a more organized way than the Settings app.”

Apple says the Passwords app uses end-to-end encryption to store your data, meaning no one, not even Apple, will know what you’ve stored. Within the app, you can search for credentials for your entries and set up groups to share passwords with other people.

Your saved credentials are synced across Apple devices using iCloud, which means the encrypted data is shared with Apple’s cloud servers and available on all your Apple devices. You can turn off password syncing on a specific device in Apple’s settings. The app is locked with FaceID.

When you use the Passwords app, any data you previously saved in Keychain or AutoFill will be moved to the new location. This also applies if you’ve used the Sign in with Apple login system on websites or apps. It’s unclear why Apple decided to pivot its Keychain system into a full-fledged password manager now, though the company has been building out the individual features for several years. (Apple had not responded to WIRED’s request for comment as of this writing.)