Best Password Sharing Tools for Working With Your EA

Your EA will need access to your accounts. There is no way around it. They will log into your email, your calendar, your travel booking sites, and whatever else you delegate. The question is whether you share those credentials securely or through a text message that lives in both your phones forever.

A password manager is not optional when working with a remote EA. It is the bare minimum for protecting both of you. Sharing passwords through Slack messages, emails, or shared Google Docs is not just sloppy; it creates a permanent record of your credentials in a format that is trivially easy for anyone with access to those channels to harvest. A proper password manager solves this problem completely.

1Password

Most people — the best balance of security, usability, and sharing features

The most popular password manager for teams, with strong sharing controls.

Create a shared vault specifically for your EA with only the logins they need. You can share credentials without ever revealing the actual password — your EA logs in through the app and never sees the raw text. Revoke access instantly if you change EA services. The guest account feature is built for exactly this use case. 1Password also supports shared TOTP codes, so your EA can handle two-factor authentication without needing your phone. The Watchtower feature alerts you to compromised credentials in shared vaults, adding a layer of security monitoring that runs in the background.

Pricing: Individual starts at $2.99/month. Teams start at $19.95/month for up to 10 users.

Bitwarden

Budget-conscious setups or teams that prefer open-source tools

Open-source password manager with a generous free tier.

Bitwarden Organizations let you create shared collections and control who sees what. The free organization plan supports two users, which is enough for you and your EA. If your EA already uses Bitwarden personally, sharing is seamless. The open-source codebase also means the security is independently auditable. Bitwarden supports self-hosting for teams that want full control over their credential data. The Send feature lets you share temporary credentials with an expiration date, which is useful for one-off access that should not persist permanently.

Pricing: Free for 2 users. Teams plan starts at $4/user/month.

Dashlane

Security-conscious users who want monitoring and VPN included

Password manager with built-in VPN and dark web monitoring.

Dashlane's sharing center lets you share individual credentials or groups of logins with limited or full rights. The admin console shows you exactly what your EA has access to and when they last used each credential. The built-in breach monitoring alerts you if any shared credential appears in a data leak. Dashlane also provides a password health score that flags weak or reused passwords across your shared vault, prompting you to strengthen credentials your EA regularly uses. The auto-fill works reliably across browsers, which reduces the friction of your EA logging into sites on your behalf.

Pricing: Premium starts at $4.99/month. Business starts at $8/user/month.

LastPass

Quick setup when your EA is already familiar with LastPass

Widely adopted password manager with straightforward sharing.

LastPass Families and Teams plans let you create shared folders for your EA. The emergency access feature is useful if your EA needs to access accounts when you are unavailable. Setup is quick, and most EAs have encountered LastPass before, which reduces onboarding friction. The Security Dashboard gives you visibility into shared credential strength and helps identify accounts that need password updates. LastPass also supports one-to-one sharing where you share individual items without giving access to your entire vault.

Pricing: Premium starts at $3/month. Teams start at $4/user/month.

NordPass

Less technical EAs who need a simple, clean interface

Clean, modern password manager from the team behind NordVPN.

NordPass uses a simpler interface than most competitors, which makes sharing straightforward. You can share individual items or folders, set permissions, and revoke access with one click. The data breach scanner checks your shared credentials against known leaks. Good option if your EA is not particularly technical. NordPass also supports passkeys for sites that use the newer authentication standard, which can simplify login flows for your EA. The XChaCha20 encryption standard is arguably stronger than the AES-256 used by most competitors, though both are effectively unbreakable for practical purposes.

Pricing: Free plan available. Premium starts at $1.49/month. Business starts at $3.99/user/month.

How to set this up with your EA

Create a dedicated shared vault or folder. Do not share your entire password vault. Make a separate collection called "EA Access" and only put the specific credentials your EA needs in it. Add new ones as they come up. Start small. Your EA does not need access to your bank login on day one. Begin with calendar, email, and scheduling tools, then expand as you delegate more.
Use "hide password" sharing when available. Most password managers let you share a login so your EA can use it without seeing the actual password. This means if you part ways, you do not need to change every shared credential — you just revoke access. This is the single most important feature for EA password sharing and the main reason a proper password manager beats a shared spreadsheet.
Enable two-factor authentication on everything. Sharing passwords is safer when accounts also require a second factor. Set up 2FA on all shared accounts and store the TOTP codes in your password manager so your EA can access them too. This adds a security layer without adding friction. Your EA opens the password manager, copies the login, and the TOTP code is right there next to it.
Audit shared access quarterly. Every few months, review what your EA has access to. Remove credentials they no longer need. This is especially important if you switch EA services or your EA's role changes. A quarterly review takes 15 minutes and keeps your shared access list clean.

Security practices that matter

Never share your master password. Your EA should have their own account on the password manager, and you share specific credentials with their account. They should never need your master password. If your setup requires sharing a master password, you are doing it wrong.

Use unique passwords for every shared account. If you are sharing passwords with your EA and one of those accounts gets breached, a unique password limits the damage to that one account. Password reuse across shared accounts means one breach exposes everything. Your password manager can generate unique, strong passwords for each account.

Set up SSO where possible. For tools that support Single Sign-On through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, use that instead of shared passwords. SSO means your EA logs in through your organization's identity provider, and you can revoke all access centrally if they leave. It is cleaner, more secure, and easier to manage than individual credentials.

Use delegate access instead of password sharing where available. Gmail, Google Calendar, and many other tools offer native delegation features where your EA gets access through their own account. This is always preferable to sharing a password because it creates an audit trail (you can see what they did under delegation) and it does not require you to share your actual credentials. Check if a tool supports delegation before defaulting to password sharing.

What to do when you switch EA services

This is where the password manager setup really pays off. When you end a relationship with an EA or switch services, you need to revoke access cleanly. With a proper password manager, you remove their account from your shared vault and they instantly lose access to everything. No frantic password-changing marathon.

If you used hide-password sharing, you do not even need to change the passwords. Revoking vault access is sufficient because they never saw the actual credentials. If you shared passwords with visibility (they could see the raw text), change those passwords after revoking access as a precaution.

Build this off-boarding step into your process. When you switch EA services, you should: remove the old EA from your password manager, change any passwords they had visibility on, review and remove their delegation access on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, and remove them from any team tools like Slack or Asana. A clean cutover takes 30 minutes if your credential sharing was organized from the start.

The recommendation

For most people, 1Password is the right choice. The guest account feature was designed for exactly this scenario, the hide-password sharing is reliable, and the user interface is good enough that even non-technical EAs can use it without training. If budget is tight, Bitwarden's free organization plan covers two users and provides all the essential sharing features. You can always upgrade later if you need more advanced controls.

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