Gone

How to share a password securely

Don’t paste it into chat or email, where it stays. Send a one-time link instead: the password is encrypted in your browser, the link opens once, and then the password is deleted. If you add a passphrase, send it a different way.

Why chat and email aren’t safe for passwords

A password you paste into chat or email doesn’t go away when the other person has used it. It stays:

  • in the message history, on every device that synced it;
  • in search indexes and backups;
  • in front of anyone who later gets into either account, or picks up an unlocked laptop.

You can’t take it back, and you can’t tell whether anyone else has read it.

  • Only the recipient can read it. The password is encrypted in your browser before it’s sent. The key travels in the link, after the #, which browsers never send to a server, so the server only ever stores something it can’t read.
  • It opens once. The first person to open the link sees the password. The server deletes it as soon as their browser confirms it arrived. Anyone after them finds nothing.
  • Nothing is kept. If nobody opens it, it’s deleted when it expires. There’s no copy, no history and no record that it was ever opened.
  • You’ll know if it leaked. If someone else opens the link first, your recipient finds it gone, and you know to change the password.

Share a password with Gone, step by step

  1. Open app.getgone.dev, the free public instance, or your own server.
  2. Paste the password into Message. You can add a note, such as the username, and attach files too.
  3. Under Delete unopened after, choose the shortest time that works. The public instance offers five minutes to a day.
  4. For anything valuable, open Add a passphrase. Type one, or press Generate for five random words.
  5. Press Create one-time link.
  6. Copy the link and send it to the person who needs the password. If you set a passphrase, tell them by a different route, such as a phone call or another app, never in the same message as the link.
  7. Keep the manage link for yourself. It shows whether the secret has been opened, and lets you delete it early. It can never open the secret.

Send a secret Free, no account, in your browser at app.getgone.dev.

From a terminal

The gone CLI does the same from a terminal, and its links open in a browser:

Terminal
printf 'hunter2' | gone send --ttl 30m --passphrase-generate

The password comes from standard input, never from an argument, so it doesn’t end up in your shell history. --passphrase-generate prints a five-word passphrase to send separately.

Good habits

  • Use the shortest expiry that works. A link that expires in 30 minutes is a much smaller risk than one that lasts a day.
  • Add a passphrase for anything that matters, and send it another way. A leaked link alone then isn’t enough.
  • If your recipient finds the link already opened, assume the password leaked and change it.
  • Change shared passwords when people leave. A one-time link keeps the handover safe; it can’t make an old password private again.

Read more in the security model and the FAQ.