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by dewey 64 days ago
I really dislike these "magic links" as a login procedure as you always have to switch between apps instead of just filling login / 2FA with your password manager. SMS is even worse as it's also insecure.

As an additional option, I can see the benefit for people who live in their Gmail app and don't have a password manager.

3 comments

This is a lame complaint but I hate it just because it will by default open the website in a browser session belonging to the email app when you click the magic link. That extra step of finding the menu and telling it to open the signed-in page in the real chrome instance just grinds my UX gears.
The other potential issue is the age of the users.

Magic emails might work for general users, but for an 80yo who struggles using a mouse. Teaching them to click on links in emails is probably not the best practise.

Their age also makes them greater targets for social engineering, and asking for an SMS code probably sounds pretty harmless. I’m not sure how secure the original poster’s site needs to be, but I think this would be sketchy.
On iOS, the code from Messages or email is auto populated. But just don’t do email. Too many things can go wrong.

But I do love pass keys.

Apple Mail will also do it.
As with a lot of Apple features...it's great when it works but 10% of the time it doesn't and then it's infuriating.

Often my iMessages arrive on my phone 30 seconds before they arrive on my Mac, so it's quicker to look at the phone notifications and type it in manually than it is to wait for them to arrive and auto-fill to get triggered.