You can try KDE's new password manager now
A replacement for a core KDE app has been flying under the radar recently.
KeepSecret, a new KDE app that acts as a desktop-wide password manager had its second release recently. The release came with its first Flatpak distribution, giving more Linux fans access.
Introducing KeepSecret
As promoted today on KDE's Floss.Social account, the lead developer of KeepSecret Marco Martin announced the release of KeepSecret 1.1 on their blog yesterday.
KeepSecret is a graphical application for storing and managing passwords in KDE Plasma and other desktop environments. With KeepSecret, you can create and open "wallets" (KDE's preferred term for secret storage databases) with a password. Once open, passwords can be provided to other desktop applications that request them via Freedesktop's Secret Service API.
This is a very early release, though. You cannot import or export databases yet, and there's no built-in password generator, for example.
Zooming out
The background: Those in the know are aware KWalletManager already exists for some of the same purposes. As explained in Marco Martin's earlier blog about Secret Service, the KDE team plans to eventually deprecate KWalletManager in favor of KeepSecret.
- KWalletManager is only compatible with KDE's native KWallet, while KeepSecret is compatible with multiple frameworks, including gnome-keyring and KeePassXC. It's also visually outdated.
Why it matters: Password management is changing, with increasing use of passkeys and OTP. More flexibility and interoperability means more freedom for Linux users in that area.
Jordan Gloor
My take: I don't use KWalletManager directly much, but when it's a little more mature I'm interested in making use of KeepSecret. Integrating my passwords stored with KeePassXC into the rest of the desktop could be a real boon.
Diving in
Go further: Check out the KeepSecret KDE App page for more details.
Get it now: You can download KeepSecret from Flathub. While still too new for standard release distros like Debian and Ubuntu, certain rolling release distros like CachyOS have it available in their software repositories.
