Code Wallet by Developer One

It seems these days every where you turn, passwords have become an integral part of life. You need a PIN to access your ATM, use your debit card, access automated phone information or a password to get onto the internet, access your email, etc. Some allow for seven digits, some only four, while others require a combination of digits and letters. For me, some databases not only require passwords that utilize digits and letter, they require at least one character and must be changed every thirty days. How in the world can you keep up with all these passwords? Developer One Software may have just the solution with their Code Wallet ($19.95) application.

I was a little skeptical about Code Wallet at first thinking there has to be a simpler way to manage your passwords. Could another document be password protected to secure all your passwords? In looking at things, I couldn’t find an alternative means other than password protecting your entire device. This can become cumbersome and I found it more convenient to password protect Code Wallet than the entire phone.

Code Wallet is a fairly simply application where your information is layed out in a tree style, allowing you to create “wallets” or folders that contain passwords. Each wallet can be unique to an individual, environment (work vs. home) or category (internet, credit cards, PIN, etc.). Each wallet is password protected and when you enter the program, you are prompted to the last opened wallet for a password.

Once inside a wallet or folder, you have the ability to unique sub-folders within the wallet to categorize your passwords and within the sub-folder you have a series of templates to guide you through entering passwords on a “card”. The templates range from Web Site to Bank Card to Library Card passwords. The templates not only include fields for your username and password but also technical contacts, url’s, addresses and other contact information.

If the included templates don’t meet your needs, there is the ability to modify a template to better suit your needs. Code Wallet is searchable by any field you’ve entered into each card. You can search by password, username, URL, phone numbers, contacts, etc.

You can change the fonts and text color to highlight different categories of information or simply to suit your personal tastes. You can also set the amount of time before the application times out, requiring a password to resume activity. This time delay ranges from one minute to one hour plus you can disable this feature.

The one challenge I found with Code Wallet is that there is no means to retrieve your password should you forget it. When you set up your password, you can associate a “hint” with that password. After five unsuccessful log-in attempts, the “hint” will appear on the log-in screen and hopefully the light bulb will go off and you’ll recall your password.

Overall Impression

Again, I was skeptical about Code Wallet ($19.95) and felt that there was existing ways to password protect a document that would hold all your passwords.

While there may be a way to do this that I’m not aware of, I found Code Wallet to be more beneficial than just providing a means to password protect this information. It not only provides you with a secure means of storing your passwords but it also allows you to keep them organized. The templates allow you to easily enter additional information beyond the username and password that could be helpful.

While you have no means to retrieve your password, you can set a “hint” that will appear after five unsuccessful attempts. It’s not as easy as clicking on an “I forgot my password” link to have your password emailed to you that most websites offer, but if you choose a good hint, this shouldn’t be an issue. Just make sure you don’t use your password as the hint.

I like that I have my passwords in one area that is password protected and don’t have to worry with password protecting my entire device. Being able to search the fields is another benefit. It would be nice if CodeWallet had a way to back up the data, but you can always copy the data file to a backup location through your file manager or simply use a backup program for your entire device. Some simply place the data file on the storage card as an added measure.

If you aren’t able to use the same password for every occasion (and I wouldn’t recommend doing that), have to change passwords periodically, or simply have a hard time remembering the countless passwords that today’s society generates, Code Wallet is a very efficient and effective application to manage all these codes, sites, and passwords. It is definitely worth a trial download and you’ll likely find yourself adding it to a shopping cart.