Create an App-Specific Password with your Apple ID

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In this video, we’re going to look at what an app specific password is, as well as why we may need to create an app specific password when we’re using our apple id with a third party app. Now, we’re primarily going to look at this on the Mac, but it works the same way on the iPad and iPhone. app specific passwords are not Device Centric. They’re app centric, which means they change from app to app. Now, why would you need to create an app specific password? Well, if you are using a third party app, let’s go over to my Mac here. If I was using a third party app for mail, I have spark here for mail, what I need to do is link my Apple ID to it so I can get my iCloud mail through this.

Well, normally what you would do, let’s go ahead and open this up. And I’m going to go to my preferences here. And then we’re going to go to Accounts. Normally, what you would do is you would just go over to the plus here, and then you would go and create an account. Basically, you would add your iCloud account to this app. So I click on this, and then I would enter in my username and password, my email address and password. But if we look here, you’re going to see it says app specific password. What is this? Well, basically, what you need to do is you need to create a separate password just for this app. If you were to type in your password that you use for your email address here, your iCloud email address, it wouldn’t work.

You need to have a separate password. Now why do they do this? Well, it’s basically for your own security. If this app were to be breached, or let’s just say it was not an app that plays nicely, what it may be able to do is grab your password, and then it’ll be able to log into your account. So what Apple does here is it has you create an app specific password, a separate password just for that app. So that way, if it does get breached, or if they want to use it, it won’t work, they can only use it on this one app. So how do you create an app specific password? Well, what you’ll need to do is go to your Apple ID, Spark here has a link to it, where you can go and create an apple id. Let’s go ahead and click on this. Basically, it’s going to open up to Apple and you’re going to see that you’re going to your apple id.apple.com. From here, what you’ll need to do is you’ll need to sign in. So I’m going to sign in here. I’m just going to use my fingerprint here. So I can sign in.

And then we have a number of different options here, one of them being app specific password, so I need to create an app specific password for Spark on the Mac. So how do I do that? Well, I basically just click on this. And then all I have to do is just go and click on the plus here. And when I click on the plus, I can put in what it’s for this is for Spark mail, and I’m just going to call it demo I created I need to confirm my password. Now this is the password that I use to get into the account. And we can see that we have here an app specific password. This is the password that I will use when I go back over to spark here. So I’ll type in note Boom productions@icloud.com. And then I’ll type in that password here. I can only use that password in spark.

Here on the Mac, if I wanted to use it for another app, I would have to go back over to my Apple ID here and generate a new app specific password. Now let’s say you no longer use that app, you want to revoke it. As an example, I just showed everyone here how they could get into my mail, just by typing in my username, my email address and their password, I need to revoke it. Well, all you have to do is just go down you’re gonna see the list of different apps. This is a description, and I called it spark male demo, I need to revoke that. All I do is just go over to the right here, tap on the minus revoke it. And now that password can no longer be used. So if you were to type that in, I wouldn’t be able to get to my email address.

So you only want to revoke it when you are no longer using that app. So that’s basically what an app specific password is. Essentially what you’re doing is you are allowing your Apple ID your iCloud account to sign into another app a third party app. And that app needs to have its own password. You cannot use your Apple ID password. Again, this is for your own security. So how do you create a new password for this or basically You just go over to Apple id.apple.com You log in. And then from there, what you’re able to do is create app specific passwords. So that is what an app specific password is and why we need to create them when we’re using our apple id with third party apps.