How to password protect any website in your browser

Your browser keeps you signed in to almost everything, which is handy until someone else sits down at it. This guide shows how to make any site you choose ask for a password before it opens, on your own computer, without touching the site itself.

First, which kind of lock do you need?

• You visit the site and want it private on your computer: your email, a chat, a bank, a photo library. That's this guide.
• You own the site and want its visitors to need a password. That is set up where the site is hosted, not in a browser, and this guide won't help with it.

Set it up

Web Lock is a free extension that does one thing: it puts your password in front of the sites on your list. There's no account to make.

1. Add Web Lock to Chrome. A setup tab opens by itself once it's installed.
2. Create your password. This is the one you'll type on every lock screen. Pick something the people around you wouldn't guess.
3. Add a recovery email. A forgotten password is reset with a 6-digit code sent to this address, so use one you can always get into.
4. Pick sites to lock. Tick any of the suggestions, or type an address of your own in the box underneath.
5. Open one of those sites in a new tab. You should get the lock screen instead of the page.

What to type for a site

Web Lock is forgiving about addresses. A few rules cover nearly everything:

• The plain name is enough. Typing facebook.com locks every page on it, with or without "www".
• Smaller parts of a site are included. Locking google.com also locks Gmail, Drive and Photos, because their addresses end in google.com. To lock only one of them, type its own address, such as drive.google.com.
• You can lock one section. Add what comes after the slash, as in example.com/account, and only addresses that begin that way are locked.
• Old names still work. Sites that forward you elsewhere are followed: twitter.com covers x.com, and gmail.com covers Gmail's real address.

Adding and removing sites later

1. Click the Web Lock icon next to the address bar and enter your password.
2. Open Locked sites.
3. Type an address to add it. To unlock a site for good, remove it from the same list.

Lock or block?

A locked site opens for anyone who knows the password. A blocked site doesn't open for anybody, you included, until it's taken off the Blocked sites list. Locking is for privacy. Blocking is for sites you'd rather not visit at all, and you can have Web Lock send you to a different address when you try.

Living with it

• Fewer prompts. The lock screen has a Keep open until I close the browser box. Tick it on a computer that's yours alone for the day.
• Private windows. Browsers switch extensions off in incognito and private windows unless you allow them. Web Lock's Browser Lock page tells you whether it's allowed and how to change it.
• One browser at a time. The lock lives in the browser you installed it in. A second browser on the same computer needs Web Lock too.

For the limits of any browser extension, and when separate computer accounts are the better answer, see how to lock Chrome with a password.

Questions people ask

Can I password protect a website without an extension?

Not from the browser. Chrome, Edge and Firefox have no setting that asks for a password before a particular site opens. An extension is how it's added.

How many sites can I lock?

As many as you like. There's no limit in the free version.

Can each site have a different password?

The free version uses one password for every locked site. Web Lock Pro lets a site have a password or PIN of its own, which is useful when you want to share one site without giving away the rest.

Where is my password stored?

In your own browser's storage. It isn't sent to Web Lock's servers unless you turn on Sync in Web Lock Pro. Your recovery email is sent, so a reset code can reach you.

Does the site know it's locked?

No. Nothing changes on the website or in your account there. The lock happens in your browser before the page is requested.