DEV Community

Cover image for How to Fix Google Chrome/Chromium asks for password to unlock keyring in Linux
Mir Rahed Uddin
Mir Rahed Uddin

Posted on • Updated on

How to Fix Google Chrome/Chromium asks for password to unlock keyring in Linux

It has been noticed that, Google Chrome and some other Chrome Engine based browsers such as Chromium, Microsoft Edge (Dev), etc are asking the password to unlock the keyring every time they have launched

Keyring

In this article, we are going to discuss, how we can easily solve this issue

Step 1:

Install a text editor

I am going to use leafpad text editor, you can use any other editor as your wish. To install leafpad, write this command in your terminal sudo apt-get install leafpad

Step 2:

For Google Chrome

Write this command, sudo leafpad /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop

Step 3:

After running this command, a text file will open, as you can see in this image

exec

Here you have to search for the keyword Exec, (Search menu -> Find or Ctrl+F)

Now, where-ever you find Exec, add the following line of code --password-store=basic with the rest of the line

Finally, save the file (File -> Save or Ctrl+S), launch Google Chrome again, you will not see the keyring pop-up anymore :)

For Chromium

Write this command, sudo leafpad /usr/share/applications/chromium-browser.desktop and follow the Step 3 discussed previously

For Microsoft Edge (Dev)

Write this command, sudo leafpad /usr/share/applications/microsoft-edge-dev.desktop and follow the Step 3 discussed previously.

Update:

Updating the browser might bring the keyring back, In that scenario, repeat the discussed steps again.

Watch on YouTube

Thanks for reading. Have a great day :)

Coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/rahedmir

Top comments (4)

Collapse
 
gustavogodoy profile image
Gustavo Godoy

Thanks! it helped me with linux mint + brave

Collapse
 
aquiles23 profile image
aquiles23

for vivald search for vivald-stable.desktop

Collapse
 
phlash profile image
Phil Ashby

It seems this has been a bugbear with Chromium-based credentials storage for a while:
askubuntu.com/questions/31786/chro...

Switching to unencrypted credential storage as this workaround does may not be the best idea (it might bork access to Gmail and other services that check). It's good to be aware of the impacts of security changes ;)

The linked thread above has a few other suggestions, in particular setting the keyring password to be your login password, will allow automatic unlocking, in a similar manner to unlocking an encrypted /home folder.... YMMV.

Collapse
 
rahedmir profile image
Mir Rahed Uddin

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, You are right. It might create some security issues. But the problem is I don't want to put keyring password every time whenever I launch these applications. The ask ubuntu forum link which you have mentioned also refers to the same solution (most of them) in a different way. Do you know any better solutions, please discuss them with us. It may help. Thanks