The core feature password managers are known and named for is the ability to securely store your passwords.
Many password managers pack in extra features, however, to offer a better experience for their users.
One of the many extra features that Bitwarden offers is automatically filling entries into login forms.
To enable autofill then, each entry needs an associated URL.
You also need to specify how Bitwarden matches the saved URL to the URL of the page.
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What Are the URL Matching Schemes?
Bitwarden defaults to using the Base domain scheme.
This option matches if the domain name and top-level domain (TLD) match.
The URI scheme, subdomain, and page are optional in a URL.
The Host matching scheme will match a URL if the subdomain, domain, and TLD all match.
If a port number is provided, this must also match.
For example, an entry with the saved URL subdomain.technipages.com will match subdomain.technipages.com/page but not technipages.com.
For example, an entry with the URL technipages.com/page will match technipages.com/page2, but not technipages.com or technipages.com/login.
The Regular expression matching scheme allows you to use regular expressions to define what matches a URL.
This method is dangerous if you are not very familiar with RegEx and is not recommended.
The Exact matching scheme only ever matches the exact page listed in the entry.
Selecting Never disables all URL matching, essentially disabling auto-fill and credential suggestions.
How to Set the Default Matching Scheme
URL matching only works with the Bitwarden online window extension.
you’re free to only change the default setting in the surfing app extension.
To do so, you first need to launch the extension pane by clicking on the Bitwarden extension icon.
Next, switch to the configs tab and tap on Options at the bottom of the page.
kick off the extension pane, then switch to the controls tab and press Options.
Select your preferred URL matching scheme from the dropdown box labeled Default URI match detection.
Thankfully Bitwarden allows you to apply an override through both the web client extension and the web vault.
This option defaults to Default match detection, which will follow your vault wide setting.
Once youve selected the matching scheme you want to use, click Save to save the change.
Use the Match detection dropdown box to override the matching scheme for a specific entry.
Conclusion
Autofill is one of the strongest user experience benefits of using a password manager.
Its important, however, that Bitwarden only suggests or auto-fills passwords when youre actually on the right site.
By following the steps in this guide, you’re free to change your default URL matching scheme.
you’re free to also override the matching scheme for specific entries.
