You can export/import passkeys now, but only on iOS | by Dan Fabulich | Jun, 2026 | MediumSitemapOpen in appSign up<br>Sign in

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You can export/import passkeys now, but only on iOS

It might be years before we can export passkeys on Windows or Android.

Dan Fabulich

4 min read·<br>Just now

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Passkeys are passwords that require a password manager. All the major password managers support them, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and 1Password.<br>Password managers provide no way for you to copy and paste your passkeys, or even to read them. To present a passkey, you have to use a password manager. This makes it impossible to copy and paste your passkey to someone trying to trick you (phishing).<br>Major password managers don’t even allow you to export your passkeys to a file that you can read/backup yourself. Up until this year, they provided no way at all to export passkeys. In 2024, if you created a passkey in Apple’s password manager, there was no way to transfer that passkey to Google’s password manager, and vice versa. (I think all the password managers kinda like that lock in.)<br>This year, some password managers have rolled out a finicky app-to-app mechanism for transferring passkeys from one password manager to another, but, surprisingly, you can only export/import passkeys on iOS.<br>How to export/import passkeys on iOS<br>Prerequisite: iOS 26 or higher<br>Transfer passkeys from Google: On iOS, download the Chrome app, open Chrome’s Password Manager, and go to Password Manager → Settings → Export Data. It will ask you what app will receive your passwords/passkeys; Apple Passwords is on the list.<br>Transfer passkeys from Apple: Open Apple’s Passwords app. On iOS, in the “…” menu, there’s an option to “Export Data to Another App.” Apple will ask you what app will receive your passwords/passkeys (e.g. the Google app, the Chrome app, Edge app, or 1Password).<br>Microsoft Password Manager doesn’t support exporting passkeys as of June 2026. There’s no way at all to export a passkey from Microsoft Password Manager into any other password manager. You can import into Microsoft Password Manager on iOS from Apple or Google, but you can’t export.<br>Why doesn’t it work anywhere else?<br>Major password managers don’t let you export passkeys to a plaintext file<br>Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and 1Password don’t let you export passkeys to a file that you can read and backup. They say that it’s because that could allow an attacker to trick you into sending them an export file. Or, perhaps they’re just trying to lock you in. Perhaps both reasons are true.<br>Bitwarden, Proton Pass, and KeepassXC do let you export your passkeys to a plaintext file. (This also makes it possible for end users to accidentally share that file with an attacker. It’s up to you to decide whether protecting yourself from being tricked into exporting your passkeys is worth sacrificing your ability to read them.)<br>Major password managers don’t even let you import passkeys in plaintext, which they would be incentivized to do, if those smaller players had significant marketshare.<br>The major password managers have agreed to standardize on an app-to-app “Credential Exchange Protocol” instead<br>The major password managers worked together in the FIDO Alliance to develop a standard protocol for exchanging passkeys from app to app, without generating a plaintext file that end users could read, backup, or accidentally leak.<br>That protocol is called Credential Exchange Protocol (CXP); it became a “Working Draft” in 2024. Now, it’s up to password managers to implement it.<br>iOS 26 and macOS 26 make it super easy to support exporting/importing passkeys<br>In iOS 26 and macOS 26, Apple introduced the ASCredentialExportManager API, which implements CXP at the level of the operating system. Password manager apps can implement this API to export passkeys. There’s a corresponding ASCredentialImportManager API for importing passkeys.<br>As a developer, you have to declare your app to be a passkey manager; when you export passkeys, you use Apple’s export API. The operating system (iOS/macOS) can then display a menu of installed passkey manager apps, allowing users to choose which passkey manager will import the passkeys.<br>Google Chrome for iOS shipped support for ASCredentialExportManager earlier this year, and Microsoft Edge (which is based on the open-source Chromium project) added support for the importer, but not the exporter, shortly thereafter.<br>Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge haven’t implemented CXP for macOS yet<br>In macOS 26, you can open the Apple Passwords app, and try using the File → Export All/Selected Items to App… menu.<br>But you’ll find it won’t do anything useful, because no major password manager has shipped an app using ASCredentialImportManager for macOS yet.<br>I’m sure they’ll get around to it at some point in the next year or two…?<br>Google hasn’t implemented any form of CXP for Android yet<br>On Google Android devices,...