What a passkey is
A key your device keeps and never hands over. The secret half stays on the phone or laptop behind your fingerprint, your face or your screen lock, and it is tied to this site alone — it will not open on a lookalike page pretending to be us, and there is nothing typed for anyone to read over your shoulder.
Add one
- Open Sign-in and security — it is under SETTINGS in the sidebar.
- Press Add a passkey. The button reads "Waiting for your device…" while your device asks you to confirm.
- Confirm with your fingerprint, face or screen lock. The passkey appears in Your passkeys, named after the device: iPhone, Android phone, Mac, Windows PC.
- Press Rename to call it something you will recognise in a year — "Classroom laptop". Enter saves it, Escape cancels.
Next time you sign in, press Use a passkey on the sign-in screen. There is no address to type: the browser offers whichever passkeys it holds for this site, and the passkey names the account.
One per device
Add one on each device you actually teach from. Every row shows when it was added and when it was last used, so a passkey you do not recognise is easy to spot.
Removing one
Press Remove on that row and confirm. The others keep working, and the toast names what went: "Removed iPhone. That device can no longer sign you in." You can add the same device again later.
If a device is lost
Sign in on another device and remove that passkey straight away. If the lost device held your only passkey, sign in with your password — or with Google or Microsoft, if that is how you signed up — then add a passkey to the device in your hand.
If the button is not there
You will see "This browser cannot use passkeys. Try Chrome, Safari or Edge on a device with a screen lock." Older browsers and devices with no lock cannot hold one. Waving the device prompt away is not an error: nothing was added and nothing broke.