Since my main lemmy’s password is locked behind Bitwarden, I had to make a new account to post. Originally I started using passwords manager because I keep forgetting passwords. But my paranoid ass is so worried that someone saw me typing my Bitwarden master password so I feel the urge to change it. So now I forgot the new master password.
The password is a few word passphrase generated from a keyword. Like an acoustic poem, if you know what I mean. I know all the words except one word, and I know the starting letter of the word, just forgot the exact word. 🥲 Guess I’m gonna flip through the dictionary to find a word that feels right.
Um so… has anyone experienced memory issues? I’m a young adult (18-25 age range), so I feel so strange to be forgetting stuff so early. Like do young people normally forget things?
If you have a memory problem or not kinda depends on how easy it would have been to forget it 😅
I’ve forgotten a very important passwords once because I had changed it, typed it maybe three times, then didn’t have to log in for months afterwards. Never did figure out what I had set…
How long ago did you reset it? How often did you type in this new password before you forgot? When did you remember it last?
I changed the password like 2 days ago. I made sure to retype it after like 10 minutes after setting it to make sure I remember. Since then, I had been using a pin for Bitwarden but I had set it to ask for the master password upon restart. And I restarted the phone today and it prompts for the master password. Whoops. I haven’t typed the password for 2 days, but I thought I could remember it because I only have to not forget the one word that I use as a hint and I can rebuild the passphrase from that word as in an acoustic poem. I thought that knowing the starting letter of each word and the number of words would be good enough to remember the whole phrase.
So now I’ll have to search a dictionary online and I haven’t come across the word that looks familiar. Each attempt requires a captcha so it’s gonna take a while.
I’d say that falls into the “reasonable to forget” category, considering you still remember most of it, only typed it twice two days ago and aren’t sleeping well (etc.)
What might help jog your memory is ‘reliving’ the moment you reset it, e.g. re-reading or watching what you were doing before, whatever you were thinking about, listening to or doing at the time and right before it. It might help you to reconstruct the train of thought that led you to choosing said passphrase.
Honestly 2 days is entirely understandable to forget.
When I change such an important password (which is very, very rarely), I keep a hidden hard copy for a short while, until I’m confident I have it memorized (usually a couple of weeks). While this has some risks, obviously so does losing access to your data. It depends on your living situation and threat model.
I don’t rely on myself remembering anything before repeating it like 100 times, over a month or so. 2 times, then 0 for 2 days, is almost guaranteed “puff” and it’s gone.
Think of memory like this: how many times back, do you remember taking a piss? The last one? the one before that? what about 10 times ago?.. but I bet you know by heart which side of the toilet you keep the toilet paper, don’t you?
We are primed to forget “irrelevant” things, and keep only what matters. Something you only did 2 times 2 days ago, tends to fall into the “irrelevant” pile. Repeat it 3 times a day for 30 days, and it will stay in the “relevant” side. Keep repeating it for a year, and it will end up in your involuntary muscle memory.
For important password changes, either write it down at the beginning, or practice remembering the new password a few times every day, for a week or two before actually changing it.