For fucks sake, mum. You have been working with computers since the seventies. How can you not know a single one of your passwords?
For fucks sake, mum. You have been working with computers since the seventies. How can you not know a single one of your passwords?
Instead of complaining, introduce her to password managers - then she only needs to remember one pw.
That is harder than you think.
“How do I copy the password?”
“Where is the password, its just dots”
“What app are my passwords in”
“Why can’t I use the same password for everything”
“I cant find the squiggle key” (~)
“Why did the autofill only fill in the email?”
"Why doesn’t the Facebook autofill work anymore? (login link is via email)
She needs to keep track of two-three passwords. Yet every time it is “how should I know the password?” I don’t think it would make any difference if it was only one and a password manager adds one more layer of confusion when I’m doing remote tech support over the phone.
My mom, every time she needs to re-enter her Gmail password: “I’m pretty sure there’s never been a password on my email thing.”
I share your frustration. Both of my parents have multiple sheets of paper next to their computers with “all” of their passwords written on them, but when they need tech support (i.e., me), the password they need is never on there.
Have you considered the possibility that this could be a subconscious act by your mom to communicate with you, a way to ensure she gets to talk to you more frequently than otherwise?
We talk on the phone at least once a week. Unfortunately I think she is getting old.
Shit (and menopause) happens. Time for post it notes.
I think her menopause was twenty years ago.
I’d say tell her to write it down, but my MIL always writes them down wrong.
That’s when you set her up with a passphrase instead of a password. Much easier to remember “The password is open sesame 143!” than “dkkfuY665&k)”
She decided on them herself, I know them and they are veeery easy for her to remember. A passphrase would be much more confusing for my old mum that was upset when she got her new phone that the keyboard was not alphabetical and only accepted after resistance that neither was it on her old phone.
LOoooooooooooooOOOOLLLLL
Then she will just forget the password to the password manager.
Try the cat’s name
Won’t work, they’ll refuse to learn how that works and ask even more questions afterwards
My moms password manager, is just my password manager. (That’s not entirely true, she did figure it out eventually, but for a while there I was simply saving all her account passwords in my manager.)
I too have gotten into the habit of putting all my dad’s passwords (at least the ones I for things I set up with/for him) into my keepass file as a backup. He will write them down, and then next time that specific piece of paper will be gone.