(Editors' Note: Myki is no longer allowing new subscriptions and is asking existing customers to transfer their credentials to a different password manager before the service shuts down on April 10, 2022. The review below reflects our last evaluation of Myki and was published on November 18, 2021.)
You need a password manager that can sync your credentials across all your devices in a secure manner. Most password management solutions use encrypted cloud storage because you can connect to your passwords wherever you are. Myki is different. Your passwords sync via end-to-end encryption with the company's relay servers, but the credentials ultimately live offline on your devices. Therefore, syncing your passwords to browser extensions and other devices is easy and secure.
Free, Local Password Protection
The best part about Myki is the price. You get all its robust core features for free. You can pay $9.95 for the Pro Bundle, but it only adds some cosmetic functions. Most people will find that the free version of Myki has everything they'll want, which makes it an Editors' Choice pick among free password managers.
LastPass relies on encrypted cloud storage even in its free version. Users who upgrade to the feature-enhanced commercial edition effectively pay for the servers. PCMag also highly recommends LastPass, which is an Editors' Choice winner for its Premium paid version.
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When we last reviewed Myki, it was a mobile-first password management solution, but now the company offers a desktop app for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Zoho Vault is another password manager with a substantial free tier that allows you to sync an unlimited number of passwords across all devices.
Getting Started With Myki
Everything about Myki sets it apart from the competition, starting from the way you set it up. You either enter a six-digit PIN or use a biometric unlocking mechanism, whether a fingerprint or facial recognition, to access the app on a computer or a mobile device. There's no master password for you to memorize, thus making your password manager more secure. Nearly every other password manager I've reviewed, from 1Password to LastPass, requires a master password.
What Is a Password Manager, and Why Do I Need One?
Setting up other devices to sync with Myki is easy. First, you install the app, which displays a QR code and a pairing code. Next, take a picture of the QR code with your mobile device or enter the pairing code, and you can enter your vaults.
An interesting new function for the desktop app is Paranoid Mode. When switched on, it requires your authentication PIN code every time you log in to a website. You can also decide how often the desktop app locks in the Settings menu.
Keep in mind that your passwords now live on your device, not in the cloud. Local storage makes your passwords secure against cloud-based attacks, but if you lose your device, you lose your credentials—unless you store an encrypted backup of your passwords using a browser extension. Myki has browser extensions for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.
If you're trying to switch from a commercial password manager such as 1Password, Dashlane, or LastPass, Myki makes it easy to import your passwords, payment card data, and secure notes into its system. First, install the Myki browser extension of your choice. Next, click the four horizontal lines in the left-hand menu. Finally, select Import Accounts.
You can import data stored in Chrome, the Figaro XML database, and the following password managers: 1Password, Bitwarden, Dashlane, Enpass, KeePass, LastPass, McAfee SafeKey, Roboform, and SafeInCloud. Are you using a different product? Export its data to a CSV, XLS, or XLSX file and import it into Myki.
Password Capture and Replay
Myki offers to save the passwords you use each time you log in to a secure site. If you don't want to save, click Cancel. Otherwise, when you click Review, you get the option to add details, save to a profile, give the entry a custom nickname, or tell Myki to ignore the site. There's also a tag field, but tags are in the Pro bundle. Finally, when you return to a website with a login stored in Myki, it puts its owl icon in the username and password fields.
Since we last reviewed this password manager, Myki created Myki Mini for its desktop app to make it easier to autofill credentials for Slack or Spotify, which exist as apps outside of browsers. To use Myki Mini, select the field you want to autofill, hold down the Shift and Control keys for Windows, or the Shift and Command keys for Mac. Next, choose the account you want to log into, then press Enter or Return.
As with many competing products such as LastPass or Dashlane, clicking the Myki browser extension icon brings up a list of your saved logins. The simple alphabetic list only shows a half-dozen or so items at a time. If you have a ton of logins, you need the search box. When you click Launch, Myki launches the login URL, so it's ready to fill in your credentials.
When you tap the URL in the browser extension to log in, Myki opens the website and attempts to log you in. However, some sites didn't log in right away in testing, and I had to copy and paste the password manually.
On mobile devices, the Myki app has an internal browser that autofills usernames and passwords with ease. In testing, Myki worked just as well with an external browser such as Safari. After enabling autofill in both the app and iOS settings, I was able to log in to both rei.com and target.com using my stored credentials.
Personal Data and Secure Notes
The apps and browser extensions also include tabs for 2FAs (two-factor authentication), Identities, ID cards, Payment Cards, and Secure Notes. As with your passwords, all the tabs sync to your devices, and the information is stored locally.
Myki doesn't do much in terms of auto-filling payment information compared with other password manager apps. When you enter payment information in the app, Myki automatically detects the card type based on the card number. You can use that data to fill in card payment information online. With Keeper, you don't even have to enter the card data; you can take a photo of the card with your phone, and it pulls that data. I would love to see Myki adopt that card data collection method in the future.
If you're saving an ID card, Myki allows you to store an image of it, but you still have to enter all the details. ID cards do not appear in the browser extensions, but you can find them on the desktop app. The lack of uniform availability of your information across all Myki platforms is a minor inconvenience, but it’s something I think the company should consider improving in the future.
You can also create Secure Notes to record and save essential information like your car's VIN or your office safe combination. 1Password is one of the many competitors also offering a Secure Notes feature, and it also allows you to add tags to make it easier to find information later.
Authentication
Goodbye, Google Authenticator! Myki has its own built-in authenticator that will remove a step from your authentication process when you log in to sites. The built-in authenticator app is a brilliant feature that I’d like to see more password managers add.
What Is Two-Factor Authentication?
To configure Myki for a site with multi-factor authentication, first capture your username and password. Next, open the saved login in either the desktop or mobile app, tap the three dots on the right side of the screen, and tap the entry labeled Setup 2FA. There's a QR-code icon in the 2FA Secret field; tap it to pair. Back in the browser, navigate to the site's two-factor setup page, scan the displayed QR code with Myki, and save your work. The site requests a six-digit code to complete the pairing, which you can find on the site's entry in Myki.
Now you'll never have to enter the six-digit codes again. Next time you log into the site, Myki fills in your username and password and automatically enters the correct time-sensitive six-digit code. All you have to do is click the login button. It's an effortless way to stay safe online.
One feature we would like to see in the future is support for security keys. A security key that goes on your key ring creates another step in your authentication routine, and it also keeps you safer, as it is unlikely an attacker can access both your key ring and your phone or computer. Many paid password managers, such as 1Password and Dashlane, support FIDO2/WebAuthn security keys for multi-factor authentication.
Form Filling
You can enter personal data in the Identities section, and Myki uses that information to fill web forms. Myki asks for the standard stuff: name, address, gender, phone number, email. A large box at the bottom of the screen lets you add additional information.
Form filling is not a full-on feature yet. When we reviewed Myki back in 2019, form filling with Identities was labeled an Experimental Feature for the app, and that holds true today. In the browser extensions, you must open the Settings page, scroll down to Experimental Features and enable Identities, along with the option to preview form-fill entries.
RoboForm began as a form-filler, and the company website has a helpful field test form that I used to test Myki on a Windows computer. I filled the test form with all the Identities data I'd entered in the app. Then I tried to open a new account on target.com. The Identities all filled in for that site as well.
The Identities feature does not fill forms on mobile devices, however. Perhaps that's why the feature is still in beta testing some three years after our last review. However, once Myki gets form filling sorted out across all platforms, it will be a truly stellar product.
Password Generator
It's not enough to store your passwords. Myki also helps you create unique, strong passwords with a random password generator. When you store your credentials in a password manager rather than in your memory, you can make your passwords as long and complicated as necessary. Longer, complex passwords with small letters, capital letters, numbers, and punctuation are the most secure passwords.
There is no one password length that is considered to be the strongest; the guiding principle for password safety is the longer the better. Myki formerly defaulted to a substantial 32 character-length password but currently, the iPhone app defaults to only 15 characters out of a possible 200. Likewise, the Chrome browser password generator defaults to just 14 characters, and the Windows desktop app generates a password of 33 characters.
I appreciate that Myki's 200 character limit is exceptional, but I wish the default lengths were longer for the mobile app and browser extensions. 1Password defaults to 24 characters.
Secure Sharing
As with many other password managers, Myki allows secure password sharing. However, unlike other password managers, the sharing is not done via email. With Myki, you share using a phone number in your Contacts list and choose whether the recipient will see the password or use it to log in. The recipient must also be a Myki app user. You cannot share from the desktop app or the browser extensions.
LastPass and LogMeOnce are among the few free password managers that let you arrange for someone else to inherit your passwords when you die. This feature is more common in commercial password managers.
A Myki representative told me there is a way for digital legacy to work with Myki. First, the primary user must choose the location for their backups. The backups are encrypted, but they decrypt with the primary user's phone number. Next, the relative or designated beneficiary could receive an SMS via the primary user's phone number to start the decryption. Mobile carriers occasionally give a relative access to a phone number if the original owner is deceased or otherwise incapacitated. In other words, it's a complicated workaround, and a digital legacy option built into Myki would be a welcome addition to the service.
Security Dashboard
The Security Dashboard identifies and suggests that you update weak, reused, old, and compromised passwords to achieve better password health. You can find the Security Dashboard on the mobile versions of the app, but not the desktop version. Dashlane and LastPass both have a security checkup tool.
To test the Dashboard, I added a site with a very weak password. The report on my iPhone gave me an overall 90 percent security rating and flagged the one weak password I had just entered for change. According to Myki's representative, the password strength report on iOS now mimics the Android standards, which were far more rigorous in the past.
Privacy Center
Myki emphasizes privacy from the start, keeping all your information on your devices rather than letting it live in the cloud. In the Privacy Center on mobile apps, the company explains in plain English what information is stored, how they store your information, and how they secure data in motion. In addition, a law enforcement notice explains what the company can and can't do in response to an information request from law enforcement.
The Privacy Center also lets you review and modify the permissions you granted or denied the app during setup. Permission for notifications is required, and camera access is needed to pair your devices. You can choose whether to give it access to your contacts and location.
Like most apps, the Myki app wants to send your anonymized data about program functionality and problems back to the parent company. If you'd rather not participate, you don't have to do anything. If you want to allow data collection, you can opt in.
Managing Devices With Myki
A device icon at the bottom of the app brings up a list of all paired devices and browser extensions. Note that the devices list is global to all devices, while the browser extensions only show up on the device that paired them. For example, on my iPhone 12 mini, I only saw connections to Windows and the iPhone. On my Windows box, I saw connections to Chrome, the iPhone, and Windows.
If you lose your device, you can remove it from your account. This action removes Myki's connection to the device and logs out of any sites Myki logged in to for you.
Pro Features
Myki offers a collection of six Pro-level features as in-app purchases. Four of them cost $2.99, the other two $4.99. But if you're going to go for any of them, buy the Pro Bundle for a one-time payment of $9.99.
While using the app, you may notice an empty Tags field for each password entry. Buying the Custom Tags option allows you to use this feature. It's worth noting that Avira Password Manager, Enpass, KeePass, and just about every free password manager include some way to organize your items, whether through categories, groups, or tags.
You can customize your account images with the Pro Bundle as well. For example, you can use images taken from the web, your gallery, or snap a photo with your camera.
The Custom Profiles option lets you define other profiles. For example, you can separate profiles for Personal and Work passwords. A few other products, including LastPass, offer a similar ability. In Zoho Vault, the separation of personal and work passwords comes standard.
Custom Fields is another option for Pro users. For example, you could use this to remember an answer to a security challenge question. You might also use it to enhance your saved Payment Cards with a field for the PIN.
If you have an Apple Watch, you may want Myki's Apple Watch app. It displays passwords, payment cards, two-factor sites, ID cards, and Secure Notes. If you've set your browser extensions to untrusted so that each login requires entering the PIN for permission, tapping your watch is easier than fumbling for your phone. Keeper offers the same sort of Apple Watch authentication at no extra charge.
Secure Notes in Myki are simple blocks of unformatted text. Other products offer notes formatted to represent very specific categories of information, with all the appropriate data fields. If you get the urge to store such structured data in your Myki collection securely, the Custom Categories option makes it happen.
You can have all the above for $9.99. However, I want to point out that some of these features come standard with other free password managers. Others don't seem that useful, like the Custom Categories or the Custom Account Images.
Myki for Businesses and Teams
New to Myki is the offering for small- to medium-sized businesses called Teams. You can access Teams in the apps by visiting the Enterprise Portal. Myki also has a platform for Managed Service Providers, but this review concerns the Teams platform.
There's a Company Vault, where admins and users can store shared company-wide passwords, 2FAs, identities, and payment cards. Speaking of sharing, administrators can choose to hide or show a password from users. Users who cannot see passwords can still autofill credentials. There are also Groups and Folders for teams who work together and share secure notes, passwords, and other credentials. Each Myki user gets a free personal vault they can use to store their non-work-related credentials.
For Admins, there's a Policies section to add an additional layer of security. Users get time-based, IP-address-based, or location-based access to their accounts or vault items. Admins also can view Audit logs to keep track of the administrator activity within the Enterprise portal.
As with the personal plans, there are Security Dashboards for Myki Teams. They allow admins to look at individual information about logins and devices used. For example, administrators can see who is using weak, old, or compromised passwords and which users are reusing the same passwords for multiple sites. This kind of reporting is common for business-related password managers. Dashlane does it well, as the reporting dashboard is the first thing administrators see when they log in.
An Excellent Value
The cloud-free secure storage, built-in authentication, and slick apps for every device put Myki a cut above the competition in the free passwords category. A few features miss the mark, such as the lack of form-filling for mobile devices and the absence of the Security Dashboard for the desktop apps. However, those flaws are minor compared with the ease of use and security Myki provides, at no charge.
If you're not prepared to keep your passwords in the cloud, Myki is the free solution you've been waiting for, and that's why it's an Editors' Choice winner. Myki shares that honor with Zoho Vault, which has a generous free tier and a litany of enterprise tools for teams and businesses.
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