User name and password not remembered

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Revision as of 14:26, 29 January 2009 by Alice Wyman (talk | contribs) (→‎Using a bookmarklet: minor rewording)
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This article deals with Firefox or Mozilla Suite/SeaMonkey not remembering user names and passwords you enter. If Thunderbird does not remember passwords, see Password not remembered - Thunderbird.

  • If Firefox 3 does not automatically enter previously saved passwords when logging into websites and new passwords can't be saved, this can be caused by a bug in Firefox 3.0.2 that affects users with password data (login, password, or domain) containing non-ASCII characters. [1] [2] If updating to Firefox 3.0.3 (or later) does not resolve the issue, see this forum topic for a solution.

Password Manager settings

You must have the "Remember passwords" feature enabled for the browser to remember them. In Firefox 2.0 and above, make sure Tools -> Options -> Security / Passwords -> "Remember passwords for sites" is checked.

Additionally, you may have once told the browser to never save the passwords for the site. In Firefox 2.0 and above, check the list under Tools -> Options -> Security / Passwords -> Exceptions.

Passwords cleared with Clear Private Data

Firefox's Clear Private Data feature may be set to clear your passwords when you close Firefox. Make sure that Tools -> Options -> Privacy -> "Always clear my private data when I close Firefox" is unchecked, or that under Settings, "Saved Passwords" is not checked.

Sites prohibit password saving

Some websites, for example Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, and some banks, specify that your username and password should not be saved. You can override this behavior.

Using a bookmarklet

  1. Bookmark the "remember passwords" link on this page.
  2. Go to the log in page of the site you want to save your details.
  3. Enter your login and password, but do not submit.
  4. Open the bookmark you just made. (Nothing will appear to happen).
  5. Submit.

On subsequent visits, your user name and password should be filled in.

Note: The "remember passwords" bookmarklet linked above may not work on all sites. Here are some alternate versions you can try. Create a new bookmark and paste the code given below in the location field of that bookmark. [3]

  • Try this version that works with frames (doesn't give feedback):

javascript:(function(){function R(w){try{var a,df,dfe,i,j,x,y,r=1;df=w.document.forms;for(i=0;x=df[i];++i){dfe=x.elements;if(a=x.onsubmit){a=""}if(a=x.attributes["autocomplete"]){a.value="on"}for(j=0;y=dfe[j];++j){if(a=y.attributes["autocomplete"]){a.value="on"}}}}catch(E){r=0}return r}R(self);var i,x;for(i=0;x=frames[i];++i)R(x)})()

  • Here is a version that gives feedback if you run it a second time:

javascript:(function(){var c=0;function R(w){try{var a,df,dfe,i,j,x,y,r=1;df=w.document.forms;for(i=0;x=df[i];++i){dfe=x.elements;if(a=x.onsubmit){a=""}if(a=x.attributes["autocomplete"]){if(a.value=="on"){c++}a.value="on"}for(j=0;y=dfe[j];++j){if(a=y.attributes["autocomplete"]){if(a.value=="on"){c++}a.value="on"}}}}catch(E){r=0}return r}R(self);var i,x;for(i=0;x=frames[i];++i)R(x);if(c){alert("Found: "+c)}})()

Using an extension

See also

External links