Use a Primary Password to protect stored logins and passwords

A Primary Password encrypts the key that protects your saved logins. Without it, anyone who can copy two files out of your profile folder can read every password you have saved. With it, those files are useless without the password in your head.

If you share a computer with anyone, set one.

Once set, you are prompted for it once per session, the first time Waterfox needs your saved passwords — including when you add, remove or reveal one.

How Waterfox stores your passwords

Two files inside your profile folder hold everything:

• logins.json — your encrypted usernames and passwords.
• key4.db — the encryption key that protects them.

Both are handled by Network Security Services (NSS), the cryptography library built into the browser. Saved logins are encrypted with AES-256-CBC.

The catch is that without a Primary Password, the key in key4.db is not itself protected by anything you know. Copying both files is enough to recover the passwords. Setting a Primary Password encrypts that key, so the files alone are not enough.

Create a Primary Password

1. Click the menu button, then select Settings.
2. Select Passwords and autofill.
3. Under Additional protections, select Use a Primary Password.
4. Enter your new password twice. The quality meter indicates how hard it would be to guess.
5. Select OK.

A good Primary Password is long and memorable rather than short and cryptic. A phrase of several unrelated words beats a short string with substitutions — “Password1!” and “P@ssw0rd” are among the first things any cracking tool tries.

Change the Primary Password

1. Open Settings and select Passwords and autofill.
2. Under Additional protections, select Change Primary Password.
3. Enter your current password, then the new one twice.
4. Select OK.

Remove the Primary Password

1. Open Settings and select Passwords and autofill.
2. Under Additional protections, turn off Use a Primary Password.
3. Enter your current password to confirm.
4. Select Remove, then confirm.

If you have forgotten it

There is no recovery mechanism — that is the point of the design. Resetting the Primary Password discards every saved login along with it, because the key that decrypts them cannot be recovered.

Related articles

• Generate a secure password in Waterfox
• Alerts for breached websites
• Manage Waterfox profiles

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