Create an account

Clipperz online password manager is free and completely anonymous. Therefore the account creation process is straightforward: simply choose a username and a passphrase and you are ready to go! No email address or any other personal information is required.

Your account will never be deleted, unless you explicitly decide to delete it. Even if you don’t access your account for years, we are still going to take care of your confidential data.

For more information about your account see the Account FAQ and the Terms of Service.

1. Choose a strong passphrase

A passphrase is a sequence of characters or words, quite similar to a regular password, but longer for added security. There are no limitations to the length and kind of characters that can be used in a passphrase. Numbers, blank spaces, kanji or cyrillic characters are welcome! For help creating your passphrase see our Passphrase FAQ.

Storing your confidential data with Clipperz is as secure as the passphrase you choose to protect them. Nobody can access them unless they know your passphrase. If you are going to use Clipperz for safeguarding sensitive and critical information please make sure to use a strong passphrase. The longer the better!

2. Clipperz is unable to recover a lost passphrase

Once your account is successfully created, your username and passphrase will be shown in clear in a small pop-up window. This will be your last chance to verify your credentials! We recommend to take good care of your username and passphrase because Clipperz staff will not be able to recover them.

Login to your account

Accessing Clipperz requires nothing more than entering your Clipperz credentials: your username and your passphrase.

But behind this very simple interface, a sophisticated authentication process is occurring: SRP, the Secure Remote Password protocol.

It’s a protocol developed at Stanford University by Tom Wu which is especially suitable for authentication over untrusted networks. SRP makes user account information stored on Clipperz servers absolutely unusable for any attackers, as well as for Clipperz staff.

Lock and logout

If you walk away from your computer for a few minutes, you can lock up your open Clipperz account by simply clicking on the lock link in the top left hand corner. You are not signing out, but the Clipperz interface “freezes” until you enter your passphrase.

If you plan to leave your computer unattended for more than a few minutes, it’s strongly recommended that you click on the logout link to completely sign out. No trace of your sensitive information will be left behind.

Managing cards

What are cards

Within Clipperz all your information is organized in cards, each card consisting of a set of fields. You can add as many fields as you need to every card. Each field can be labeled and typified accordingly to the kind of information it has to accommodate.

The screenshot below shows what you will be presented after your first login to Clipperz or when no card exists yet.

Card creation

You have two different paths for creating new cards:

• use the Clipperz bookmarklet to quickly create a new card and configure a direct login at the same time, learn more …
• manually select a template and fill in your data, learn more …

By adding cards and configuring direct logins your Clipperz account will soon look like this one.

Manual creation of a new card

Card templates

For your convenience Clipperz includes some card templates for the most common types of sensitive information: web accounts, credit cards, bank accounts, …

Adding a new card

• Click on the “Add new card” button and select one of the available templates. Please note that you can always customize your cards later by adding or removing fields.
• Click on the “Create” button and a new card is added to your list.
• Edit the title and the content of the various fields. Of course, you can also add new fields, rename or remove existing ones.
• Save your newly created card.

Clipperz bookmarklet

What is a bookmarklet

A bookmarklet is a simple “one-click” tool that can perform very useful tasks. It can be saved and used like a normal web page bookmark. Because Internet Explorer uses the term “favorites” instead of “bookmarks”, bookmarklets are also less commonly called “favlets” or “favelets”. See this Wikipedia entry for more information.

What does the Clipperz bookmarklet do?

The Clipperz bookmarklet will help you to

• quickly create a new card,
• add a new direct login to an existing card.

Please note that the Clipperz bookmarklet does not include any information related to your account (e.g. your username or passphrase). The bookmarklet is a general tool containing the same code for every Clipperz user.

Where to install the bookmarklet

The most convenient place where to install a frequently used bookmarklet is the “Bookmarks Toolbar” of your browser (also called “Links Toolbar” in IE). The Clipperz bookmarklet is no exception.

How to install the bookmarklet

Depending on which browser are you using there are slightly different installation steps to perform.

Firefox, Camino, Opera, Safari

1. Make sure that the “Bookmarks Bar” is displayed by selecting “View > Toolbars > Bookmarks”, or similar menu items, from the browser menu.

2. Drag and drop the “Add to Clipperz” link below to the bookmark bar.

   

Internet Explorer

1. Make sure that the “Links” toolbar is displayed by selecting “View > Toolbars > Links” from the browser menu.

2. Right-click on the “Add to Clipperz” link below.

   

3. Select “Add to favorites” from the contextual menu.

4. Click “Yes” for any security message that pops up.

5. Open the “Links” folder and click “OK”

Direct logins

One of the most common use for Clipperz’s card index is to securely store the details of online accounts.

Clipperz is, in fact, the perfect place to save that overwhelming amount of data used to access all kind of web services: your mobile phone bills, the username you were issued by an airline’s website or the credentials for the new social network you just joined, …

Wouldn’t it be convenient if you could not only retrieve this information from Clipperz, but also directly sign-in to any of your web services without typing any username and password? This is exactly what direct logins are all about.

Feel free to forget all your passwords!

What is a direct login?

A “direct login” is just a link in your Clipperz interface that will allow you to sign-in to a password protected web site by simply clicking on it.

How do I create a “direct login” for a specific online service?

You just need to launch the Clipperz bookmarklet from the page where you usually enter the credentials to access that service. Then, if your credentials are already stored in a Clipperz card, follow these instructions, otherwise create a new card and a “direct login” at the same time using this procedure.

How do I use a “direct login”?

Nothing could be less complicated: simply click on the desired “direct login” link in the “direct login” pane that is prominently displayed on the left side of your Clipperz account. Alternatively you can launch the Compact version of Clipperz in your Firefox sidebar to keep your collection of “direct logins” always at hand.

How secure are “direct logins”?

They are as secure as the whole Clipperz application since they were designed on the same security architecture and adopting the same “zero knowledge” philosophy. This means that Clipperz cannot learn anything about your login data and your usage patterns.

How does a “direct login” work?

For those interested, here is a more technical explanation of what is going on under the hood when you create and use “direct logins”.

1. The Clipperz bookmarklet is a smart little Javascript program capable to analyze and extract the structure of a login form. When you click on it from the sign-in page of a web site, it displays a pop-up window containing the structure of the login form encoded using the popular JSON syntax.

2. When you create a “direct login”, you are simply required to copy the configuration collected by the bookmarklet to the card containing the credentials for that web site.

3. Clicking on a “direct login” link triggers several actions:

   • a new empty browser window opens;
   • a copy of the original login form is created on the new window using the data previously collected by the bookmarklet;
   • the new login form fields are filled with the corresponding values stored in the card;
   • the form is automatically submitted.

4. The above actions are mostly invisible to you. The only noticeable effect is that in few seconds you are logged in to the desired web site in a new browser window!

5. Please note: login credentials are never transmitted to Clipperz! All actions involved by creating and using “direct logins” are performed locally in your browser.

What to do when a “direct login” does not work?

Not all login forms are compatible with Clipperz “direct logins”. The Clipperz bookmarklet is capable to understand a vast majority of them, but in certain cases the direct login will fail.

There are basically two cases:

1. Flash and Java login forms

These kind of authentications cannot be handled by the Clipperz bookmarklet. Unless you manage to find a more friendly sign-in page to the same web site, you will not be able to create a working direct login. It can be useful to contact the website owner, present your problem and ask for alternative login forms.

2. The bookmarklet does produce a configuration, but the direct login fails.

If everything looks fine, but your new direct login is unable to automatically log you in, chances are that the problem can be solved by manually tweaking the configuration generated by the bookmarklet. Please send us an email or post a message on the Clipperz forum.

Add a direct login to a card

If one of your Clipperz cards contains credentials for an online service you should consider adding a “direct login” to that card. Why? Because signing-in with just one click is very convenient!

Please note: you first need to install the Clipperz bookmarklet.

1. Visit the login page of the online service

• Go to the web page where you usually enter the login credentials for the online service.
• Launch the Clipperz bookmarklet by clicking on it: a pop-up will appear over the page.
• Copy to the clipboard the content of the large text area within the pop-up.

2. Add the direct login to the card

• Go to Clipperz and select the card containing the related login credentials.
• Click the “Edit” button and paste the content of the clipboard to the large text area in the “direct logins” section of the card.
• Click the “Add new direct login” button.

3. Bind the login form fields with your card fields

• A new “direct login” has been added to your card! A drop-down menu for each field of the login form will be displayed.

• Select a card field from each menu to create a connection with that form field. (Usually this is as trivial as selecting the “Username” card field for the “userID” form field and the the “Password” card field for the “pw” form field.)

• Sometimes you could also see more additional drop-down menus, radio buttons or checkboxes. They are related to other options you could set when logging in, such as the “remember me” flag or the preferred language. Select the appropriate values for all of them.

• Change the direct login title. (It will appear in the “direct logins” pane on the left.)

Quickly create a card and configure a direct login

Clipperz is the right place to store credentials for online services. Follow the steps below to quickly create a new card with the username and password used to sign-in and a new “direct login” at the same time.

Please note: you first need to install the Clipperz bookmarklet.

1. Visit the login page of the online service

• Go to the web page where you usually enter the login credentials for the online service.
• Launch the Clipperz bookmarklet by clicking on it: a pop-up will appear over the page.
• Copy to the clipboard the content of the large text area within the pop-up.

2. Create a new card

• Go to Clipperz and click the “Add new card” button.

• Select the “Direct login” template and paste the content of the clipboard to the large text area in the form. Then click the “Create” button.

3. Review card details and enter login credentials

• A new card has been added! It already contains the fields required by the login form (typically the username and password fields) and a “direct login” section with a drop-down menu for each field of the login form.

• Now you can review the card title, the field labels and add more custom fields to contain other details related to this online service (e.g. the URL, the subscription expire date, …).

• Most important you need to enter your login credentials in those fields that were automatically created.

4. Check direct login details

• In the “direct login” section of the card every form field has already been bound to the correct card field. No change is required.

• Sometimes you could also see more additional drop-down menus, radio buttons or checkboxes. They are related to other options you could set when logging in, such as the “remember me” flag or the preferred language. Select the appropriate values for all of them.

• Change the direct login title. (It will appear in the “direct logins” pane on the left.)

• When you are finished click “Save”. The new “direct login” link will appear in the pane on the left.

Offline copy

We thought that once you start using Clipperz to access your private data, it could be a real nuisance being offline! This is why we implemented the offline copy feature.

With just one click you can dump all your encrypted data from Clipperz servers to your hard disk and create a read-only version of Clipperz to be used when you are offline.

The read-only version is as secure as the read-and-write one and will not expose your data to higher risks since they both share the same code and security architecture.

Of course you cannot add new cards or modify/delete existing ones.

To download your offline copy, follow these steps:

1. Select “Offline copy” under the “data” tab.
2. Click the “Download” link.
3. The browser will ask you what to do with the “Clipperz_YYYYMMDD.html” file. Save it on your hard disk.
4. Double click on the downloaded file to launch the offline version in your browser.
5. Enter the usual username and passphrase.

The inner structure

If you are a curious type, you can take a look at the source of the downloaded html file. Open it with a good text editor and look for the string

<script>_clipperz_dump_data_

Starting from that row is the very raw data that you have been storing to and reading from Clipperz servers. Quite scrambled, isn’t it? The only way to make sense of it is knowing your username and passphrase!

Exporting and printing

It’s your data! You can export the content of your Clipperz cards to a printable format, JSON or XML. Just visit the “Data > Export” section of your Clpperz account and make your choice.

• Printing
• Exporting to JSON
• Exporting to XML

Printing

Clicking on the “Printable version” link a new window will be opened. Your cards will be displayed in a format suitable for printing.

If you are going to print for backup purposes, please consider the safer options provided by the creating an offline copy.

Exporting to JSON

JSON is a lightweight computer data interchange format. It is a text-based, human-readable format for representing simple data structures.

This format enables a “lossless” export of your cards. All your information will be preserved, including the direct login configurations.

Exporting to JSON is quite convenient if you need to move some or all of your cards to a different Clipperz account. Or if you want to restore a card that has been accidentally deleted.

Exporting to XML

Coming soon …

Clipperz Compact

Clipperz Compact is a special version of Clipperz designed to be opened in the Firefox sidebar. Its purpose is to keep your collection of direct logins always at hand.

IMPORTANT: Clipperz Compact works also in Opera’s panel.

How to launch Clipperz Compact in the sidebar

1. Get Firefox! Sidebars are only available in Firefox and you need to switch to Firefox in order to enjoy the convenience of the Compact version.

2. Add the following URL to Firefox bookmarks, or even better, drag it to the bookmark bar. (To display the bookmark bar just select “View > Toolbars > Bookmark Toolbars”.)

   https://www.clipperz.com/beta/index.html?compact

1. Change the properties of the bookmark so that “load this bookmark in the sidebar” is checked.

Login and lock in Clipperz Compact

Of course you can login to Clipperz Compact with your usual username and passphrase. The authentication procedure is exactly the same of the full version.

Once logged you have the option of locking the sidebar to prevent unauthorized accesses when you are away from your computer.

The lock can be activated manually by clicking on “lock” or automatically after 60 seconds of inactivity within the sidebar, but only if “auto lock” is checked.

Enjoy one-click access!

Clicking on any of the links in the sidebar will automatically access the related online service in a new browser tab or in a new browser page (check the settings in the Preferences, Tabs section, of Firefox). And of course you are already logged in without typing any username or password!

Technical notes

• Please note that Clipperz Compact is loading exactly the same code as the full version. The “?compact” parameter in the URL of Clipperz Compact does not tell the server to load a special version of Clipperz, but it is locally interpreted by the Javascript code as an indication to display the stripped down layout.

• Clipperz Compact is also available from the offline copy. Just append “?compact” at the end of the local URL.

  file://…/…/…/Clipperz_20070518.html?compact

Sharing

Quite often a confidential piece of information needs to be shared with one or more persons.

This could be as simple as giving your colleague the access code of your voice mailbox when you are out of the office, or as complicated as enabling the entitled heirs to access your safe deposit box at the local bank when you pass on.

Clipperz can make sharing your secrets a secure and straightforward process.

Coming soon …

How to delete your account

You are free to delete your Clipperz account whenever you wish. It’s very simple: select the “Delete your account” section under the Account tab and enter your account credentials.

Important: once deleted, your account and all of your data is completely and irreversibly removed from the Clipperz server. It can’t be undone. It might be a good idea to download an offline copy or export your data first.

Import

Clipperz lets you quickly import passwords and sensitive data from:

• other password managers (Roboform, Keepass and PasswordPlus)
• popular file formats (Excel and CSV)

Just go to the “Data > Import” section of Clipperz and follow the instructions below.

• Importing from Keepass
• Importing from Roboform
• Importing from PasswordPlus
• Importing from a CSV file
• Importing from an Excel file
• Importing from JSON

Importing from Keepass

Keepass is an open source password safe with a very good reputation, but all the shortcomings of software based solutions. Luckily Keepass has good export functionalities.

1. Open Keepass and export your entries to a plain text file by selecting “File > Export to > TXT file”.
2. Locate and open the exported TXT file with a text editor and copy all the text.
3. Select Keepass in the “Data > Import” section of Clipperz, click “Next” and paste the copied text in the large text area.
4. Click “Next” and follow the instructions!

Importing from Roboform

RoboForm is a proprietary password management program. It does not have proper export functionalities (too bad!), however you can save your Passcards and Safenotes to HTML and then move them into Clipperz. The results are quite good, but will probably require some manual cleanup.

1. From the Roboform toolbar in your browser, choose “Roboform > Logins > Print List”.
2. A new window will be opened. Now press the Save button to create an HTML file containing your Passcards.
3. Locate the file you saved (e.g. passcards.htm) and double click it to open it.
4. Once open, choose “View > HTML” from your browser’s menu (or “View > Page Source” depending on the browser). Select all and copy it.
5. Select Roboform in the “Data > Import” section of Clipperz, click “Next” and paste the copied text to the large text area.
6. Click “Next” and follow the instructions!

Please note: if you want to export not just your Passcards, but also your Safenotes, you need to go through the above process a second time. To start choose “Roboform > SafeNotes > Print List” from the Roboform toolbar in your browser and proceed as above.

Importing from PasswordPlus

PasswordPlus is a password manager mostly used on mobile devices. It can export passwords to a special CSV file.

1. Export your records from PasswordPlus to the CSV format by selecting “File > Export”.
2. Locate and open the exported CSV file with a text editor and copy all the text.
3. Select PasswordPlus in the “Data > Import” section of Clipperz, click “Next” and paste the copied text to the large text area.
4. Click “Next” and follow the instructions!

Importing from a CSV file

CSV (Comma Separated Values) is a widely recognized file format that stores tabular data. Several software programs can export data to this format.

1. Open the CSV file with a text editor and copy all the text.
2. Select CSV in the “Data > Import” section of Clipperz, click “Next” and paste the copied text to the large text area.
3. Choose the special characters used within the CSV file. The most important is the “separator”. It can be a comma or a tab.
4. Click “Next” and follow the instructions!

Importing from an Excel file

Excel files are a common, but risky option, when it comes to storing passwords. Before moving your data to Clipperz make sure that the Excel file is properly structured: one record per row, consistent values in each column (e.g. title in the first columns, URLs in the second, usernames in the third, passwords in the fourth, …).

1. Open the Excel file using Microsoft Excel.
2. Select the range of cells you want to import and copy it.
3. Choose Excel in the “Data > Import” section of Clipperz, click “Next” and paste the copied cells to the large text area.
4. Click “Next” and follow the instructions!

Importing from JSON

Clipperz can export your data to a [JSON][2] format. It’s a true “lossless” export since all the information contained in your cards, including direct login configurations, are available. If you inadvertently delete a card or the information it contains, you could use your latest JSON export to restore that single card. Or you can import the whole set of your cards to a different Clipperz account.

1. Open the JSON export file with a text editor and copy all the text.
2. Choose Clipperz in the “Data > Import” section of Clipperz, click “Next” and paste the copied cells to the large text area.
3. Click “Next” and follow the instructions!

One-time passphrases

One-time passphrases (OTPs) are an excellent choice if one is concerned about keyloggers or spyware infections that may be collecting data from compromised machines. It’s strongly advisable to use one-time passphrases when accessing Clipperz from public terminals, such as those found in Internet cafes and libraries.

What is a one-time passphrase?

A one-time passphrase works like a regular Clipperz passphrase, but it can be used only once. If the same passphrase is used again at a later stage in a login attempt it will be rejected and the login process will fail.

Each one-time passphrase is 32 character long and it guarantees at least 128 bits of entropy.

How do I create and print one-time passphrases?

Go to the Account tab and select the “Manage your one-time passphrases” section. Click on the “New” button to add a new OTP. You can create as many as you need.

The available OTPs are listed in a table along with those already used. Clicking on the “Print” button opens a new browser window displaying the printable version of valid OTPs.

How do I login with a one-time passphrase?

Simply select the checkbox displayed below the passphrase field.
For your convenience the field will be split in 4 parts: just enter 8 OTP characters in each of them.

The OTP is case and space insensitive. Furthermore the validation process is smart enough to not get confused by the most common typing errors (e.g.: “0” for “O”, “1” for “l”, …).