Your iCloud Keychain passwords will work in Chrome, other browsers with macOS Sonoma

If you use Apple's iCloud Keychain password manager but also find yourself using third-party web browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, we have good news for you. The upcoming macOS Sonoma update will add third-party web browser support for iCloud Keychain and it's already live in the latest beta release.

The iCloud Keychain password manager is built into all iPhones, iPads, and Macs and allows passwords and usernames to be stored securely in iCloud. Unfortunately, that means that accessing those passwords in apps like Chrome isn't currently possible, but that's changing when macOS Sonoma arrives this fall. Now, it's been confirmed that the latest macOS Sonoma beta already has the feature enabled which means those on the developer and public betas can now test it out.

The way this all works is by installing an Apple extension that is already available for Chrome and Edge and it's that extension that handles everything. The iCloud Passwords browser extension hooks into iCloud Keychain on your Mac and then pulls out the required credentials when they're needed.

Unfortunately, this doesn't fix the main issue with iCloud Keychain - the fact that there is still no actual app for managing them. Instead, passwords are hidden in the Settings or System Settings apps, making them hard to manage. For that reason, apps like 1Password remain a better option for a lot of people. Some had hoped that iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma would see the arrival of a password management app but alas, that wasn't to be. Hopefully that's something Apple will get around to implementing in 2024.