# Autocomplete="off" disables Safari password manager

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/autocomplete-off-disables-safari-password-manager/14472>\
**Category:** Feature\
**Created:** [April 4, 2014, 6:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/autocomplete-off-disables-safari-password-manager/14472 "2014-04-04T18:54:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

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**Author:** ![larry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/larry/32/268016_2.png) [@larry](https://meta.discourse.org/u/larry)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2014, 1:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/autocomplete-off-disables-safari-password-manager/14472/3 "2014-04-05T13:52:27Z")

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See below re Chrome:

> **[Passsword managers and autocomplete='off' from Joel Weinberger on 2013-12-12...](https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/2013OctDec/1002.html)**

> Part of the issue here is that autocomplete=‘off’ is overloaded. It is  
> simultaneously meant to denote a “secure” or “sensitive” field _or_ that a  
> field’s completion will be handled by the application itself. Thus, we are  
> not proposing to ignore autocomplete=‘off’ for our form fill as there are  
> many places where the application itself creates a suggestion box, and we  
> have no desire to override that functionality. Rather, we care about the  
> “sensitive” use, which in the case of password fields, is already denoted  
> by the input type=‘password’.

`autocomplete="off"` either does or has until recently controlled both autofill and password manager on most browsers. The original intention behind the attribute doesn’t seem relevant - we’re not designing browsers - we’re making sites that work as users expect them to work in browsers that already exist.

IE 11 solved this issue by removing support for autocomplete=“off” on input type=password. [RE: Passsword managers and autocomplete='off' from Adrian Bateman on 2014-01-03 (public-webapps@w3.org from January to March 2014)](http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/2014JanMar/0015.html)

And it sounds like from the above Chrome thread that Chrome either already has or is planning to do the same. I don’t know what Safari’s plans are. Didn’t look into Firefox.

What’s the value of adding `autocomplete="off"` to the password input?

Browsers either ignore it or use it to disable their built in password manager. None (that I know of) save your password without prompting - so there’s no risk of someone logging in on a public computer having their password inadvertently saved.

And if there is value to adding `autocomplete="off"` to the password field, is that value more than the cost of breaking the password manager for majority of mobile users? iOS Safari still looks to be around \>50% of mobile browser share.

That’s a lot of Discourse users either picking insecure passwords they can remember or reuse or simply not logging in on mobile because it’s a hassle to copy and paste the password from Lastpass.

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