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Passkeys on iPhone: how to set up

Lucas Heringer
Updated

On iPhone, passkeys work through iCloud Keychain, Apple's native password manager. If you already use iCloud Keychain, your Picnic passkey is registered seamlessly, using Face ID or Touch ID.

Requirements

  • iPhone with iOS 16 or later.
  • iCloud Keychain enabled — instructions below.
  • Face ID or Touch ID set up on the device.
  • Signed in to your iCloud account (Settings → [your name] at the top).

How to verify iCloud Keychain is enabled

  1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
  2. Tap your name at the top.
  3. Tap iCloud.
  4. Scroll down to Passwords and Keychain (or Keychain).
  5. Make sure it's On. If not, enable it.

Step by step to register a Picnic passkey

  1. Open the Picnic app or go to usepicnic.com on Safari.
  2. Follow the account creation / recovery flow until you reach the "register passkey" step.
  3. The iPhone will show a system prompt asking whether to save a passkey for Picnic.
  4. Tap Continue.
  5. Authenticate with Face ID or Touch ID.
  6. Done! Your passkey is stored in iCloud Keychain and automatically synced across your Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, Mac).

How to use the passkey afterwards

Whenever you need to sign in to your account or authorize a transaction:

  1. Picnic will request your passkey.
  2. The iPhone will show the authentication screen.
  3. Just use Face ID or Touch ID.

Syncing between iPhone, iPad, and Mac

One of the big advantages of iCloud Keychain is that the passkey becomes automatically available across all your Apple devices signed in to the same iCloud account. For example, if you registered the passkey on iPhone, it's already available in Safari on your Mac.

How to use it on a non-Apple computer (Windows, for instance)

If you want to sign in to Picnic on a Windows or Linux PC using the iPhone passkey, use the QR code flow:

  1. Go to usepicnic.com in the PC browser.
  2. Enter your email and proceed. A QR code will appear.
  3. Open the iPhone camera and point it at the QR code.
  4. Tap the notification that appears.
  5. Authenticate with Face ID or Touch ID.

See details at: How to sign in to my Picnic account.

Common issues

The passkey option doesn't appear when creating the account

  • Check that iCloud Keychain is enabled (steps above).
  • Check that iOS is up to date (16 or later).
  • Check that Face ID / Touch ID is set up on the device.

I accidentally deleted the passkey from iCloud Keychain

In that case you need to recover your account. See: How to recover or replace your passkey.

See also

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