pass-import VS Mailspring-Libre

I fully agree.

> thinking people can run their own crypto better than they can

Running or developing ?

You can probably run something like Password Store [1] fairly secure, though you still have to trust the operating system not to leak your secrets, and it turns out that today, regardless of your choice, all major operating systems more or less synchronize your data to the cloud.

I know Linux doesn't do it (Ubuntu tried some Amazon partnership once), but Linux is a poor match for many workplaces where Windows or MacOS are kings. Yes, you can run VSCode (or Vim/Emacs or whatever) on Linux, but running Photoshop, Fusion365 or various other business tools is not as "easy" as on Windows/MacOS, and in the end a company only has so many IT support staffers.

[1]: https://www.passwordstore.org/

> I always tell these people to just sign up for a password manager and they always resist and say no. I must be missing something obvious.

Maybe they don't want to be relying on a random third-party for all their passwords?

Rather than getting them to sign up for a password manager, what about getting them to install a password manager? I use https://www.passwordstore.org/ - it encrypts your passwords with GPG, and shares the storage via a Git repository for synchronisation between different machines.

That way you can delegate the password handling to another program, e.g. a password manager like pass(1) (https://www.passwordstore.org/) or some interactive graphical prompt.

I want to move to something compatible with https://www.passwordstore.org/ - an open standard for keeping your passwords in a folder encrypted with OpenPGP.

The problem is that I'm nervous to give an unknown Android app and browser plugin total control of my passwords and access to my github account when I don't have time to review it's code properly. I have a bit more trust ing the command line tools, but I'd like to be sure that more people are looking at the code before I trust my life to it.

> Create a system or pattern based on url or brand and mentally hash it into a password.

Doesn't sound very secure. Also when you realize that you anyway have to trust cryptography, I believe it starts making a lot of sense to have an actual cryptographic key and encrypt it with one good random password you learn by heart.

I use pass https://www.passwordstore.org/, which encrypts my passwords with my GPG key, which comes from my Yubikey, which I unlock with a password. That means that I only need to remember one password, and it feels a lot more secure than your pattern based on url or brand.

i use pass and keep my database on a local git repo. it encrypts your passwords with gpg and is a really simple command line program

If you want portability and simplicity, there's a project called simply pass that uses standard *nix utilities (and git, I believe) to manage passwords from CLI.

If you want to give it a try I recommend you to use libre version since the telemetry has been removed in that one: https://github.com/notpushkin/Mailspring-Libre

Seconding the Mailspring recommendation, but be aware that it requires a Mailspring ID. There’s some progress, though, with a telemetry-free fork[1] (that’s the version I’m using right now) and plans to make the ID optional in the official client [2].

[1]: https://github.com/notpushkin/Mailspring-Libre

[2]: https://community.getmailspring.com/t/mailspring-without-mai...

N. B. Please note that Mailspring Libre build isn't fully open source right now: the sync engine, MailSync, is proprietary, and while we're working on replacing it, it probably won't happen anytime soon. By downloading Mailspring Libre build, you accept the MailSync license (which doesn't affect you as a regular user).

I've just started using Mailspring-Libre. I've only used it for basic scenarios so far but I have no complaints. I can't speak for power-user features yet.