This random password generator makes a new password as soon as the page opens, and another each time you change a setting or press Generate new. Choose a random password of 6 to 64 characters from the character types you tick, or a passphrase of 3 to 10 words. You can make up to 20 at once and copy them one by one or all together.
How to use the password generator
- Pick Random password or Passphrase at the top.
- For a random password, set Length with the slider (16 to start) and tick Uppercase, Lowercase, Numbers and Symbols as the site allows. Edit Symbols to use if a site only accepts some symbols; the default set is
!@#$%^&*-_=+?. - Tick Leave out look-alikes if you will read the password aloud or type it from paper.
- Choose How many: 1, 3, 5, 10 or 20.
- Press Copy next to a password, or Copy all to get the whole list, one per line.
How the passwords are made
Every character the password generator makes comes from your browser's cryptographic random number generator, the same source it uses for encryption keys, through the Web Crypto API. Random values that would make some characters slightly more likely than others are thrown away and drawn again, so each character in the pool has the same chance. When you tick several character types, the password always contains at least one of each, which keeps sign-up forms that demand a digit or a symbol happy. All of this runs in the page, and no password is sent to our server or stored.
Password generator 16 characters, 12 or 8: which length?
The meter shows strength in bits of entropy. Each extra bit doubles the number of guesses an attacker needs. For a random password, the bits are the length times log2 of the number of possible characters. With all four types ticked and the default symbols, the pool is 75 characters. The table shows what the meter reports for common lengths.
| Length | Bits | Meter | Time shown to guess |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 characters | 49 | Fair | 14 hours |
| 12 characters | 74 | Strong | 50,188 years |
| 16 characters | 99 | Very strong | more than a trillion years |
| 20 characters | 124 | Very strong | more than a trillion years |
Eight letters and digits with the look-alikes left out gives about 46 bits, which a fast offline attack at 10 billion guesses a second gets through in about an hour. The meter rates anything under 40 bits as weak, 40 to 59 as fair, 60 to 79 as strong and 80 or more as very strong. For an account that matters, a strong password generator setting is 16 or more random characters, or a passphrase of five words or more.
The time estimate assumes an attacker who has stolen a database of fast password hashes. Guessing through a website's login page is much slower, because sites limit repeated attempts. You can see what a stored hash looks like with the Hash Generator.
Passphrase generator
The password generator's Passphrase mode picks words from the Electronic Frontier Foundation's long word list of 7,776 words, published under CC BY 3.0 US at eff.org/dice. Each word adds about 12.9 bits, so four words give about 51 bits, five give about 64 and six give about 77. A phrase such as womanhood-skylight-product-basics-tiara is easier to remember and to type on a phone than 16 random symbols.
Choose a Separator: hyphen, space, dot, the _ character or none. Capitalise each word adds no strength, because the pattern is predictable. Add a number puts one digit after a random word and adds a few bits, about 5.6 for a five-word phrase.
Keeping passwords safe
- Use a different password for every account, so a leak from one site doesn't open the others.
- A password manager can store them all, which leaves one passphrase for you to remember.
- Turn on two-factor authentication wherever a site offers it.
- A copied password stays on your clipboard until you copy something else.
For a home Wi-Fi network, generate a long password here and let guests join by scanning a code from the QR Code Generator. The guide to making a free QR code shows the Wi-Fi format. For random IDs for database rows, which don't need to be secret, use the UUID Generator. More small utilities are in Everyday Tools.
