Manage Passwords! Help to get you started with Keeper (and leave Last Pass)

“Oh No! What’s my login and password?”

That’s what I wrote back in 2020. And then I thought the answer to managing passwords was Last Pass.  Many people did.

But . . . 2022 came and Last Pass had a severe data breach. Then more and more information came out at the end of 2022.   Here’s just a few articles:

• Tech Crunch article
• Hackers News article
• Naked Security article

So, do we just throw out the idea of having a password manager app?  I don’t think so.

I think we STILL have the same problem: we have so many passwords and we need to access them quickly.

So today I am running away from Last Pass (I am not going to stick around to see if they make it better) and trying Keeper.

1. What is Keeper?

Keeper is a password manager.  Honestly, I was thinking about Keeper or 1Password.  There are many articles on both of them.

• Here’s an article from Cyber News
• Here’s an article from Best Reviews.net

Today, I am trying Keeper.

It works basically the same as Last Pass:

1. We create a Master password that we need to remember.
2. We use this password to access Keeper.
3. Then Keeper remembers our other passwords.

2. Where Do I put Keeper?

Here’s some good news: we have some choices.

• We can add Keeper to our computer browser like Chrome or Firefox.
  • But It works on both Windows and mac0s.
• We can also put Keeper on our phone or mobile device.
  • It works for both iOS and Android.

3. Let’s Get Started and Sign up

1. Sign up
   1. At the time of this post, Cybernews has a link for 40% off
   2. You can also go to the Keeper website and click  “Try it Free” at the top.
2. Verification
   1. I signed up and immediately got a verification email with a code.
   2. I typed in the code and continued signing up.
3. Finish Signing up
   1. 1. Be careful: like many websites, they automatically add on other products and your check-out price is more than you thought it would be.
      2. If you don’t want the additional products, make sure to uncheck them.
      3. I chose to keep: BreachWatch.
         • The site states that this added feature “monitors the dark web for breached accounts then alerts you so you can take action to protect yourself against cybercriminals”.
      4. That’s it!  I was emailed a payment receipt and then clicked “Get Started”.

** Update 2024:  I was emailed a payment receipt but there was no “Get Started”, so I needed to go directly to the Keeper website.

4. Set up Keeper

• The good news is that Keeper walks us through the basic set up and it’s easy.

1. • The bad news: I think Keeper falls short after that in getting us up and running.  
   • Keeper has videos, guides, blog posts … some new and some from years ago. Highly frustrating does not even begin to describe my experience.
     • Some go in to detail of advanced tools first before the basics.
     • Some tell instructions out of order . . .
     • or they finally tell us what we need and then repeat themselves a few pages later.
   • But I keep telling myself: I am going for security and will overlook their lack of simple start up instructions.

• • So, I am writing (4) posts — this is the first of the four — with some general information.

** Update 2024:  I was emailed a payment receipt but there was no “Get Started”, so I needed to go directly to the Keeper website.

Let’s Begin

1. Go to the Keeper website and click Login / Web Vault at the top right.
2. Click Create an Account.
3. Type in the account email and click next.
4. We first create a Master Login password
   • Note: if you first downloaded the Keeper app on your phone, you may have already created a password.
5. Next step: we can install the Keeper import tool.
   • BUT this is only for the passwords saved by our Browser.
   • I was disappointed that the wizard didn’t at least get me started in importing from another password app.
6. So we are on our own:  let’s import our information from another password app.

**Update 2024:  We see a popup that allows us to Import Passwords from a variety of places

**Update 2024: We can also Install the Browser Extension which allows us to click to the online Vault quickly

5. Import from Last Pass, first Download the Keeper Desktop app

I will be going through what I did to move data from Last Pass to Keeper.  But if you have data in another Password App, the instructions should be similar.

1. First, get the Keeper Desktop App
   1. Go to the Keeper website and click Download at the top Or go directly to the Keeper download page
   2. Choose “Windows”,  “Mac”,  or “Linux” Download
      1. So far, so good; this is similar to how other programs install. Keeper downloads a file. We then double click the file and install the Keeper app
      2. We quickly get a Welcome message.
   3. Log in using the master password we recently created.
   4. We now have Keeper Desktop App on our computer!
      1. With Windows, there is now an icon waiting for us at the bottom of our screen.
      2. Right click Pin to task bar.
         • We can click the icon at any time to get in to the Keeper Vault via the Desktop App.
2. Get Information from Last Pass.
   1. Note: There is a “Simple” Method where Keeper automatically gets the information from Last Pass.
      1. Click our email / Settings / Import / Last Pass.
      2. Fill in Last Pass login info and click Next.
      3. Click Import. Poof it supposed to import all info, BUT . . . This “Simple” method did not work for me.  I got an error.  And everything came to a stop!
   2. If it doesn’t work for you . . . keep reading  . . . I continued and imported Last Pass info the “Manual” way.

6a. Manual Method: Export Information from Last Pass

1. Open our browser and go to the Last Pass website.
   • For Last Pass, since I have used Last Pass in the browser, the Last Pass icon is sitting there at the top of the browser.
2. Click Advanced Options / Export.
   • This will export a csv file – which is a basic text file with all our information.
3. We now have our Last Pass data ! The csv file has now been automatically downloaded to our computer.

6b. Manual Method: Import Information into Keeper

1. Under Section 5 above,  we got the Keeper desktop app on our computer but I had a frustrating stop.
2. Now with the Keeper Desktop App: click our email / Settings / Import / Last Pass / Import CSV.
   • Remember this is the Desktop App — don’t go out to their website and try to do this.
3. Drag and Drop the Last Pass csv file we just exported into the “Drop a File Here” box.
   •  A new windows appears where we can see our information.
4. Press Next / Import.
5. Done! It worked!

7. Try it Out

• Web. We can now see our Data via our browser on the web
  1. Go to the Keeper website
  2. Login / Web Vault  (Note: logging in to Admin Console if a business account)
  3. It will now try to upsell us again:
     • It will ask us to “please turn on Secure File Storage to protect your secret files, photos and videos in your Keeper Vault”
     • You can choose “Yes” and pay for another product, or choose “No”.
  4. Finally: there is our info!
• Desktop App. We can also see our Data via the Desktop App on our computer
  • As we talked about above:
    • With Windows, there is now an icon waiting for us at the bottom of our screen.
    • We can click the icon at any time to get in to the Keeper Vault via the Desktop App. 
  • Note: at the bottom of the Desktop App, there is a choice to work offline.
  • Note: We may not think there is much use for the Desktop App if we mainly want to use it for online sites, but
    • See Keeper Blog #2 under Two-factor authentication.   This Desktop App was needed to solve a problem.

More to come on Keeper – see Blog Post #2 of 3

Copyright of Image:damedeeso / 123RF Stock Photo