The other day I ran into a nasty problem where Internet Explorer did not remember the password when I entered the site. I don’t really remember when he stopped remembering passwords, but it didn’t seem to matter which site I went to, he just didn’t ask me if I wanted to save or remember the password.
For online security reasons, it is not really recommended to use a browser to manage passwords, but instead use a password manager like LastPass. I’ve previously written about online security and why a tool like LastPass is so much safer than the built-in browser.
Anyway, the point is that you can store some passwords in IE for really low value websites that you don’t even care if they get hacked.
In this post, I’ll show you a couple of things you can do to get IE 11 to remember passwords again. Hopefully one of the solutions will solve your problem.
First method – check IE settings
First, we want to make sure IE is actually set up to store passwords. Sometimes the settings change and all you have to do is turn this option back on. Here’s how. First open IE, then click the gear icon in the upper right corner and select Internet Options.
Next, go to the Content tab and then click Settings under the AutoComplete heading.
Now make sure the check boxes for Usernames and passwords in forms and Ask before saving passwords are checked and click OK.
Now restart IE and see if the remember password dialog appears when you enter the website. If not, keep reading.
The second method – start IE without add-ons
There are times when a particular add-on causes a problem and prevents IE from saving passwords. You can quickly check this by choosing Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and then clicking Internet Explorer (no add-ons).
If you are using Windows 10, you need to click the Start button, type Run and press Enter, and then enter the following command in the Run dialog box:
iexplore. exe -extoff
If you started getting the option to save your password, then you know that this is one of the add-ons. You can disable all of them and then enable them one by one until you figure out which one is causing the problem. If it’s not an add-on, keep reading.
Third method – Reset IE
The easiest way to do this is to reset IE. You can do this by going to the Advanced tab in the Internet Options window and clicking the Reset button.
You will see a dialog box asking for confirmation and asking if you want to delete personal settings as well. I suggest that you also delete your personal settings if you don’t really need to keep them. It’s best to reset everything at this stage.
Note that sometimes IE 11 asks you to save your password, and sometimes it doesn’t. This is not really an IE 11 problem, but a flaw. There are several reasons why you might have a specific site that won’t prompt you to remember your password:
1. Autocomplete is disabled on the page using a special attribute
2. The page uses Javascript to send login information
3. The login form is created in Javascript
4. IE 11 does not recognize the presence of a login form on a web page
5. If you have ever chosen “No” when asked to save your password earlier
As for # 1-3, there’s nothing you can do about it. This is how IE 11 works when it sees a page like this. In case # 4, it could have been because the form was written in Flash, Silverlight, Java, etc., and IE 11 would be unable to detect the login form.
For # 5, if you ever chose “Noâ€, there is no way in IE to override that. Luckily, someone at Microsoft wrote a little tool that will allow you to see all the sites that you select “Don’t remember†and undo that action. You can read the next post here:
http: //blogs.msdn.com/v/iinternals/archive/2010/04/09/restoring-tkhe-internet-explorer-password-autocomplete-prompt.asps
As I mentioned earlier, extensions like LastPass are much better because they can recognize login forms on a lot more websites, so you won’t have a problem when they sometimes don’t work. Plus, it’s much safer and easier to use. Enjoy!
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