🔐 pw - Terminal Password Manager powered by fzf

pw is a command-line password manager unifying trusted password managers like macOS Keychain, KeePassXC and GnuPG in a single interface within the terminal. It combines the security of your favourite password managers with the speed and simplicity of the fzf fuzzy finder and allows you to interact with various keychains effortlessly.

Why pw?

• Unified Interface: pw unifies trusted password managers in a single terminal interface.
• Efficiency: With the fzf fuzzy finder, pw allows for rapid and intuitive interaction with your keychains - nice!
• Simplicity: pw is built using simple bash, making it easy to understand, modify, and extend.
• Extensibility: Adding plugins for your preferred password managers takes only minutes (see plugins).
• Clipboard Management: Automatically clears passwords from the clipboard after a specified duration.
• Multiple Keychain Support: Effortlessly manage and switch between multiple keychains stored in various locations.

Quickstart

# create a keychain (.keychain-db for macOS Keychain, .kdbx for KeePassXC)
pw init ~/secrets.keychain-db

# optionally configure keychains in ~/.pwrc so you can access them from anywhere
# otherwise, pw will discover keychains in the current directory
echo 'PW_KEYCHAINS=(~/secrets.keychain-db)' > ~/.pwrc

# add an entry
pw add GitHub sschmid

# add another entry interactively
pw add

# copy the password directly by providing the name
pw GitHub

# or use fzf to select an entry (-p prints the password instead of copying it)
pw -p

If you would like to manage your passwords yourself, you can use pw with GnuPG to store encrypted passwords in a directory:

# create a keychain
pw init ~/secrets/   # end with `/` for GnuPG
cd ~/secrets

# optionally configure keychains in ~/.pwrc so you can access them from anywhere
# otherwise, pw will discover gpg encrypted passwords in the current directory
echo 'PW_KEYCHAINS=(~/secrets/)' > ~/.pwrc

# add an entry
# if you haven't configured ~/.pwrc yet, you need to specify the keychain once
# because the directory is empty and pw can't determine the keychain type yet
pw -k ~/secrets add GitHub sschmid

# add another entry interactively
pw add

# output binary format (default)
pw add GitHub.gpg

# output ASCII-armored format
pw add GitHub.asc

# copy the password directly by providing the name
pw GitHub

# or use fzf to select an entry (-p prints the password instead of copying it)
pw -p

Install and update pw

# install
bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sschmid/pw-terminal-password-manager/main/install)"

# update
pw update

# uninstall
/usr/local/opt/pw/install --uninstall

How pw works

pw provides a unified interface to interact with various keychains and forwards commands to the respective password manager using plugins. Plugins are simple bash scripts that implement the following functions (see plugins):

• init
• add
• edit
• get
• show
• rm
• ls
• open
• lock
• unlock

Password managers may vary in their capabilities, so pw provides a consistent interface by implementing workarounds where necessary.

Here's an overview of which features are supported by each plugin:

Legend:

• ✅: native support by the password manager
• 🤩: workaround implemented by pw
• ❌: not supported by the password manager

Feature	macOS Keychain	KeePassXC	GnuPG
Create keychain	✅	✅	✅ (directory)
Add entry with name and password	✅	✅	✅
Add entry with name, account, url, notes and password	✅	✅	🤩
Allow multiple entries with the same name given the account is different	✅	❌	❌
Add entry in groups (e.g. Coding/GitHub)	❌	🤩	✅
Edit entry	✅	✅	✅
Remove entry	✅	✅	✅
List entries	✅	✅	✅
Open keychain	✅	✅	✅
Lock keychain	✅	❌ (keychain is never left unlocked)	✅
Unlock keychain	✅	✅ (starts interactive session)	✅
Key file support	❌	✅	❌
YubiKey support	❌	✅	❌
Automatic keychain discovery	✅	✅	✅

Usage

In all following examples, [<args>] refers to the optional arguments name, account, url, notes in that order.

When using fzf mode to select an entry, such as when getting, editing, or removing an entry, you can toggle the entry preview by pressing ?. The entry preview shows details like the name, account, url, and notes and is off by default.

Press CTRL-Y on any entry to copy (or print) the details.

Create keychain

pw init <keychain>                 create keychain

pw init ~/secrets.keychain-db   # macOS Keychain
pw init ~/secrets.kdbx          # KeePassXC
pw init ~/secrets/              # GnuPG (end with `/` to create a directory)

# macos_keychain special behaviour
pw init secrets.keychain-db            # will create a keychain in ~/Library/Keychains
pw init "${PWD}/secrets.keychain-db"   # will create a keychain in the current directory

Add entry with name and optional account

pw add [<args>]                    add entry. If no args, interactive mode

pw add                                      # add interactively
pw add GitHub                               # add entry with name
pw add Google [email protected]              # add entry with name and account
pw add Google [email protected]
pw add Homepage admin https://example.com   # add entry with name, account, url
pw add Coveralls "" https://coveralls.io "login via GitHub" # add entry with name, url, notes

If a plugin doesn't support multiple entries with the same name, you can add the account to the name:

pw add "Google (Work)" [email protected]
pw add "Google (Personal)" [email protected]

Add entry in group

pw add Coding/GitHub
pw add Coding/JetBrains

Edit entry

pw edit [<args>]                   edit entry. If no args, fzf mode

pw edit          # starts fzf to select an entry
pw edit GitHub

Get entry

pw [-p] [<args>]                   copy (or print) password. If no args, fzf mode

pw          # starts fzf to select an entry
pw GitHub

Show entry

pw show [-p] [<args>]              copy (or print) details. If no args, fzf mode

pw show          # starts fzf to select an entry
pw show GitHub

Remove entry

pw rm [<args>]                remove entry. If no args, fzf mode

pw rm          # starts fzf to select an entry
pw rm GitHub

Generate a password

pw gen [-p] [<length>] [<class>]   generate password with given length and
                                   character class (default: 35 [:graph:])

pw gen                  # equivalent to pw gen 35 '[:graph:]'
pw gen 16
pw gen 24 '[:alnum:]'
pw gen 32 '[:digit:]'

Automatic keychain discovery

pw automatically searches for keychains in the current directory and adds them to the PW_KEYCHAINS array. This way you can keep your keychains in the same directory as your project and pw will automatically discover and use them.

Specifying a keychain

There are multiple ways to specify a keychain:

# specify keychain using -k for the current command (overrides PW_KEYCHAIN)
pw -k secrets.keychain-db

# specify keychain for the current command
PW_KEYCHAIN=secrets.keychain-db pw

# export default keychain for the current shell
export PW_KEYCHAIN=secrets.keychain-db
pw

Using multiple keychains

pw allows you to interact with multiple keychains from different password managers. This feature is particularly useful when you have keychains stored in various locations. You can specify different keychains using the PW_RC configuration file, which defaults to ~/.pwrc.

By default, pw uses the keychain specified in the PW_KEYCHAIN variable. However, you can define multiple keychains in the PW_KEYCHAINS array within the ~/.pwrc configuration file. Here's an example of how the default ~/.pwrc file looks:

PW_KEYCHAINS=()

To use multiple keychains, modify the PW_KEYCHAINS array to include the paths to your desired keychains, e.g.:

PW_KEYCHAINS=(
  secrets.keychain-db
  ~/path/to/myproject.keychain-db
  ~/path/to/keepassxc.kdbx
  ~/path/to/gpg/secrets
)

After configuring your keychains, continue using pw as usual. If no keychain is specified with -k or by setting PW_KEYCHAIN, pw allows you to select one from PW_KEYCHAINS using the fuzzy finder.

Using pw in a command or script

Use pw to avoid leaking secrets in scripts that you share or commit.

curl -s -H "Authorization: token $(pw -p GITHUB_TOKEN)" https://api.github.com/user

Provide passwords via STDIN

To avoid password prompts that can interrupt scripts, you can provide passwords via STDIN.

⚠️ Warning: Avoid providing passwords in plain text, because they can be exposed in process listings, shell history, logs, and through insecure network transmissions, making them vulnerable to theft or misuse. Instead, use secure methods like environment variables to protect sensitive information.

echo "${MY_PASSWORD}" | pw init ~/secrets.kdbx
echo "${MY_PASSWORD}" | pw add Google [email protected]
echo "${MY_PASSWORD}" | pw unlock

If your shell supports STDIN with here string (like bash), you can use it like this:

pw init ~/secrets.kdbx <<< "${MY_PASSWORD}"
pw add Google [email protected] <<< "${MY_PASSWORD}"
pw unlock <<< "${MY_PASSWORD}"

Customization

Export or provide the following variables to customize and change pw's default behaviour:

# Default keychain used when not specified with -k
# otherwise, PW_KEYCHAINS is used to select a keychain with fzf
export PW_KEYCHAIN=secrets.keychain-db

# Default length of generated passwords
export PW_GEN_LENGTH=35

# Default character class for generated passwords
export PW_GEN_CLASS='[:graph:]'

# Time after which the password is cleared from the clipboard
export PW_CLIP_TIME=45

# Path to the configuration file
export PW_RC=~/.mypwrc

Configure keychains in ~/.pwrc

PW_KEYCHAINS=(
  secrets.keychain-db
  ~/path/to/myproject.keychain-db
  ~/path/to/keepassxc.kdbx
  ~/path/to/gpg/secrets
)

Plugin specific configuration

Some plugins support additional configuration options by appending them to the keychain path after a colon :, e.g. /path/to/keychain:key=value.

This syntax can be used everywhere a keychain is specified, e.g.:

pw -k ~/secrets.kdbx:key1=value1,key2=value2

PW_KEYCHAINS=(
  ...
  ~/secrets.kdbx:key1=value1,key2=value2
  ...
)

KeePassXC

If you want to use a key file for unlocking the database, you can specify the path to the key file:

PW_KEYCHAINS=(~/secrets.kdbx:keyfile=/path/to/keyfile)

If you're using a YubiKey with KeePassXC, you can specify the slot to use:

PW_KEYCHAINS=(~/secrets.kdbx:yubikey=1:23456789)

GnuPG

To set a different gpg key as the default for encryption, you can specify the key id:

PW_KEYCHAINS=(~/path/to/gpg/secrets:key=634419040D678764)

You can control the gpg output format by specifying a file extension:

# output binary format (default)
pw add GitHub.gpg

# output ASCII-armored format
pw add GitHub.asc

Requirements

pw

brew install fzf

pw plugins (optional):

macos_keychain

Nothing to install, security is already installed on macOS.

keepassxc

brew install --cask keepassxc

gpg

brew install gnupg