Buttercup, a free, secure and cross-platform password manager

about buttercup

In the next article we are going to take a look at Buttercup. Today everyone has accounts in different services. Therefore, we must have several different passwords for these accounts. Needless to say, setting the same password for multiple accounts is a crazy and dangerous practice. If an attacker managed to get into one of your accounts, it is very likely that they will try to access other accounts that you have with the same password. Therefore, it is highly recommended to set different passwords to your different accounts.

It is recommended, as I say, is to have different passwords, but this can become complicated if they are secure. We will always have the option of writing them on paper, but it is not an efficient method either. This is where the password managers come to help us.

Password managers are like a repository where we will be able to store all our passwords and lock them with a master password. In this way, all we need to remember is the master password.

Buttercup general characteristics

  • Buttercup is a free password manager, open source, secure and cross-platform.
  • We will be able to find the source code in your GitHub repository.
  • Been written with NodeJS.
  • It will help us to store all our login credentials of different accounts in an encrypted file. We can store this in our local system or any remote servicesuch as DropBox, ownCloud, NextCloud, and WebDAV-based services.
  • uses a 256-bit AES encryption method to keep our confidential data under a master password. Therefore, no one will be able to access our login details except those who have the master password.
  • Buttercup currently supports Gnu / Linux, Mac OS and Windows.

ButterCup for web browser

  • Also a browser extension and a mobile app available. Therefore, we will be able to access the same file that we use in the desktop application.

Installing Buttercup Password Manager on Ubuntu

Buttercup is currently available as .deb packages, AppImage and tar files for the Gnu / Linux platform. To download any of them, we will have to go to the versions page. There we will be able to download the version that we want to use. Then we are only going to have to install it on our system.

Add files

When we start the program for the first time, we will see the following welcome screen:

buttercup welcome screen

We haven't added any files yet, so let's add one to get started. To do so, we will click the button 'New file' . We will have to give it a name for the archive file and also select the location to save it.

buttercup new file

You can name it whatever you want. The files will have the extension .bcup and they will be saved in the location we select. If you've already created one before, just select it by clicking 'Open file'.

Buttercup will then ask you to write a master password for the newly created file. It is recommended to provide a strong password to protect files from unauthorized access.

master password buttercup

Once this is finished, we will have created a file and we will have it protected with a master password. In the same way, we will be able to create all the files we want and protect them with a password.

Let's go ahead and add the details of an account to the file.

Add entries (login credentials) to files

Once you have the file created or open, you will see something like the following:

add entry buttercup

This is where we will save our login credentials from our online accounts. Since we haven't added any entries yet, let's do it.

For add a new entry, click on the 'ADD ENTRY' button, located at the bottom. Enter the account information you want to save.

add entry gmail buttercup

If you are interested add some additional detail, there is an 'ADD NEW FIELD' option just below each entry. Click and add as many fields as you want to include in the entries.

Save files to a remote location

By default, Buttercup will save your data to the local system. However, we can save them in different remote services, such as Dropbox, ownCloud / NextCloud or a service based on WebDAV.

To connect to these services, go to File -> Connect cloud sources. Select the service you want to connect to and authorize it to save your data.

butter cup connect remote service

We will be able to connect those services from the Buttercup welcome screen while adding the files.

Everything seen so far, are just some of the things we can do with this program. We can also import or export data to or from other password managers or create groups, among other things.

Buttercup is a simple, yet mature and fully functional password manager. If you ever need a password manager, Buttercup may be a good option. For more details, see the site project website.


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