What Passwords Do We Forget Most Often? Causes & Easy Solutions!

Do you struggle with remembering your passwords, regardless of how simple or complex they are? A recent password survey found that the most commonly forgotten passwords include those for banking and finance services and social media accounts. 

So, if you want to know more about the passwords that can be easily forgotten, why they are forgotten, and how to prevent that from happening, make sure to read this article till the end.

Here Are Some Passwords We Forget Most Often 

People mostly prefer setting passwords containing words and phrases related to them. They may use the name of their favorite actor or actress, their old phone numbers, or something else they like. 

But over time, our preferences can change. So, if we don’t like the same actress or dessert anymore, we may struggle to recall it or the places we used it as a password. 

Apart from this, people can forget extra hard passwords as well. For example, I’ve seen people googling hard passwords for their accounts. They pick up anything random from blog posts, for instance, TFpgE9LcI5kn%, and later struggle to recall it. 

And it’s understandable why. To remember something, you need to have something to remember it by. You need to have some retrieval cues. There’s nothing memorable about a bunch of lowercase and uppercase letters, number, and percentage sign thrown together in a password.

Why Do We Forget Some Passwords?

So, we just looked at some passwords that we are more likely to forget than others. However, it’s not just about the super easy or hard ones. Despite their importance, we’re equally likely to forget other kinds of passwords. The study found that 30% of people forget their banking account password.  

But why? How can we be so forgetful of passwords when they are essential? Well, there are several reasons why some of them are as follows:

• We end up setting complex combinations of numbers and digits as our passwords for our accounts that require a lot of effort to be remembered. 
• Sometimes, like in the case above, we do not choose something other than something relevant. 
• We have many passwords for our banking accounts, social media accounts, gaming accounts, and whatnot. All of these passwords can quickly become a jumbled mess in our heads, making us confused between passwords and unable to remember which one was for what. 
• If your web browser has a save password or autofill feature, you’d not even bother to keep the password in mind. And this becomes problematic when you’re trying to log into your account from another password or device. 
• These days more and more devices and apps have started using biometric logins. So, if you can log something utilizing a touch of your finger (fingerprint sensors) or a look (Face ID), why would you bother remembering passwords?
  • On top of that, because of biometric logins, people no longer enter their passwords manually. They can go months without reviewing their passwords and, consequently, forget them. 

How Not To Forget Passwords?

I know you’ve understood all the reasons why one may forget one’s password. But there’s no denying that resetting passwords is a whole different ordeal. As we’ve seen from the survey, it can consume hours to get into your account once you’ve forgotten the password. 

So, don’t you think it’d be better if we were to put a little more effort into remembering passwords? It can save us time and the frustration that lost passwords follow. 

Here are some tips to avoid losing your passwords:

• Have a sheet with hints about all your passwords. You can use cryptic language to disguise the clues. Also, remember to keep it safe from people. Do not leave the sheet lying around just like that. 
• Create a sentence or acronym that will act as a hint to your password. Ensure that the sentence is exciting or at least something you won’t easily forget. 
• You can use a string of random words by replacing a few letters here and there as your password. 
• You can also have a base password–something similar everywhere and build upon that. Like, as modifying it by using special characters or digits. 
• However, if you want to save yourself from doing all this, you can choose a more leisurely way by getting yourself a password management system or vault. There are both free and paid versions available in the market. 

Final Words

In this article, we’ve discussed why we forget passwords and how to avoid forgetting them. We hope you’ve found these tips helpful! If you did, use these tips to create stronger passwords and remember them the next time.