This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Lolu chungechunge lwabekwa kunqolobane. Uyacelwa ubuze umbuzo omusha uma udinga usizo.

Better control of when master password dialog appears?

Fnord
Fnord
more options

I understand the need to ask for the Master Password to unlock saved credentials and allow synchronization. However, for many quick browsing session, I require neither capability. Instead, every time I start Firefox, I am pestered with one (or multiple) password dialogs. Often, these appear after I have already started to type into one of the other text entry boxes, in some cases even stealing keyboard focus from each other.

Is there a way (extension/add-on?) to allow Firefox to non-instrusively indicate its interest in me entering a password (e.g., show a small icon in the status bar), which I could then explicitly click to show the dialog for entering the master password in the cases where I know that it will needed?

Altertatively, can I start Firefox with a command-line switch that will suppress all master password requests for this session?

Note that I do not want to lose either the sync capability nor the saved passwords in general. I just want to not be pestered with the master password when I know that I won't require either feature in the current session.

I understand the need to ask for the Master Password to unlock saved credentials and allow synchronization. However, for many quick browsing session, I require neither capability. Instead, every time I start Firefox, I am pestered with one (or multiple) password dialogs. Often, these appear after I have already started to type into one of the other text entry boxes, in some cases even stealing keyboard focus from each other. Is there a way (extension/add-on?) to allow Firefox to non-instrusively indicate its interest in me entering a password (e.g., show a small icon in the status bar), which I could then explicitly click to show the dialog for entering the master password in the cases where I know that it will needed? Altertatively, can I start Firefox with a command-line switch that will suppress all master password requests for this session? Note that I do not want to lose either the sync capability nor the saved passwords in general. I just want to not be pestered with the master password when I know that I won't require either feature in the current session.

All Replies (1)

jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

I'm not aware of any built-in setting or command-line switch for this. I have not searched the add-ons site to see whether an add-on can make the dialog non-modal or open in the background; it might require changes to Firefox itself.

Currently, many Firefox notifications and interactions are getting built into the "i" icon area on the address bar, but those tend to be page-specific. I'm not sure where Firefox is or will or should be displaying notifications for background tasks, but perhaps the way new updates generate a clickable desktop notification could be a model? For example: "Sync paused waiting for Master Password" at some interval appropriate for the urgency of the service.

You can make general features suggestions here (click the sad face):

https://input.mozilla.org/feedback/firefox

There are mailing lists to raise discussion issues with developers and UI folks here:

https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo (not sure which is best to start, maybe Sync?)

And if you want to file a bug to request a feature you can do that here:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi