Lastpass is packed full of useful features. Do you know about these 3?
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| “Doh”, CC-BY 2.0, via Flickr |
Lastpass does more than remember your passwords for you.
Of course, it will fill them in for you too – and log you into your favourite websites.
But it can do so much more than that.
Here are three features you may have missed, that can save you time and make you more secure than ever.
Read on to find out more.
Photo credit: “Doh”, by Andrew McCluskey
1. Form Fills And Card Payments
Click on the Lastpass icon in your browser and look at the available options.
One of the choices you may have ignored before is called “Form Fills”.
Taking a couple of minutes to enter your info here, can save you loads of time in the long run.
Select the option to “Add a new profile” and Lastpass will ask you to enter some details about yourself.
This can include as much, or as little as you like, from your name and address, through to bank card numbers.
The brilliant part, is that once you’ve put them in here, Lastpass can fill in online forms for you, just by clicking the correct profile.
It’s intelligent too, filling out just the fields you need, including those annoying little picklists for months and years in date of birth fields.
You can set up multiple profiles too: I have ones for home and work, in case I need personal or professional data on a particular form.
For example, I have forgotten the number of times I have had to enter my name and address for shopping sites.
Rather than typing it all in, I just click my “home” profile to enter it all for me.
You can also set up family members with their own profiles, so you don’t have to ask them their mobile phone numbers, or other details, every time you fill out online car insurance forms.
If you’re worried about your details falling into the wrong hands, then you can set it up so you are re-prompted for your master password, when you try to access that profile.
2. Secure Notes
I love note taking apps and I’m a huge fan of Evernote.
I keep all kinds of things in Evernote, everything from web clippings, through to PDF user guides for all my gadgets, and photographs of my car registration plates – it’s a real workhorse.
However, there are some things that just don’t belong there.
Maybe I want to keep a record of sensitive information, like my passport or driving license details, a PIN number, or the entry code to a building.
I need to make sure I keep the details somewhere, but I need them held extra securely.
Lastpass Secure Notes can let you do that.
When you add a new secure note, you get to choose from a selection of templates.
These automatically include relevant fields, such as account number and PIN for a bank account, or start and end dates, for a membership record.
You can keep:
- PC user account passwords
- membership numbers
- software registration codes
- and so on…
If you just want to quickly jot down some text, just stick with the “generic” note template.
Whichever option you choose, you’ll also get a free text notes area (where you can type whatever you like), and the ability to upload and attach a file.
Finally, if you want to be completely paranoid about a specific note, you can tick a box which makes you re-enter the master password, when you try to open it.
3. Security Check
Lastpass advises us to make sure that we use unique passwords for every website and to make sure they are strong.
However, if you’re anything like me, you’ll have gone through the following:
- Get up and running with Lastpass, importing all your historic websites
- Go to your favourites and let Lastpass generate proper random passwords
- Stop there
This means that your most used sites are nice and secure, but what about the others?
You may still have weak passwords out there and some of them may be duplicated, across different sites.
Sort them out with the Lastpass Security Check, which will run a comprehensive audit and give you a report of the results.
Click the Lastpass Icon and choose Tools > Security Check
This will take you to a special link, where you’ll be prompted to re-enter your master password.
It will then run through a quick analysis of your websites and present a report.
You’ll be given a percentage score, telling you how good your overall security is.
You will also see, exactly which sites have duplicate or poor passwords.
Better still, the report provides direct links to the affected websites, so you can change passwords quickly, right from there.
For some websites, Lastpass can even update the password automatically.
Now, I’m not expecting you to go through and change them all immediately; that’s likely to take some time.
What I would encourage you to do, is to run the check every now and then, when you have a spare moment, then just pick off one or two of the most vulnerable sites.
Soon enough, you’ll have worked your way through them all and buttoned up your security, tighter than you ever thought possible.
You’ll then get the added reassurance of seeing your score go up, over time.
Take Aways
So there you have it.
Three additional ways Lastpass can help you out, which are well worth a look.
Even if you choose not to use the first two, I would highly recommend you take the Security Check for a spin – you never know what you might discover.
Today’s question:
What’s your favourite “advanced” feature in Lastpass, and why?