Passkeys · Reviewed

Unwanted passkey prompt keeps interrupting attempts to use the passkey

Raised by 38 people over 5 years (2022–2026), in 5 of them.

What people report

2022-10
Browser vendors don't even offer any way to not use their baked-in authenticator
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2025-01
Now trying to use them with KeepassXC/Keepassium the experience is terrible.
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2025-08
there's also no UI to remove them or reset them
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2026-09
having to deny it multiple times per initial login
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2026-10
they always ask right when logging in which is the absolute worst time to ask anything
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Principle

Nielsen's "User control and freedom"

People report repeated, overlapping passkey prompts with no permanent "Never" option, no keyboard dismissal and no choice of which app stores the passkey, so they cannot steer or escape the flow and sometimes save passkeys in the wrong place.

A fix

Offer a persistent "Never for this site" choice, collapse stacked prompts into one dialog that Escape dismisses, use plain button labels, and let users set a default passkey provider. When no passkey is found, offer to unlock the password manager or create a passkey instead of stopping at "no passkeys available".

Grouping, principle and fix drafted with Claude and reviewed by Justusability. Counts are people whose comment Claude labelled a usability complaint about this issue; see Method for how, and its limits. Something wrong here?

All 41 source comments