Leaving LastPass — a calm, step-by-step plan
You do not have to move everything tonight. A weekend plan for leaving LastPass safely, keeping two-factor codes working, and closing the account without regret.
Most people who leave LastPass do it in a rush after a headline, and a rush is when passwords get lost. Here is a calmer plan that fits in a weekend and leaves nothing behind.
Friday evening — take stock (20 minutes)
Open LastPass and look at four things:
- Two-factor codes. If you use the LastPass Authenticator app, note which sites live there. Those codes are separate from the vault export.
- Shared folders. Anything shared with family needs a plan for the other person too.
- Attachments. Files attached to notes come across if the export includes them; large ones may not. Download any you care about.
- Form fills and addresses. Nice to have, not critical; they import as identity items where the format allows.
Saturday morning — export, preview, import (30 minutes)
Follow the LastPass switch guide: export the CSV, preview the import so you can see exactly what will be added, commit it, and delete the export file. The whole guide is written for someone who has never opened a terminal.
Then spot-check ten items — your email, your bank, three shops, and a few you rarely use. Try one login on its website so you see autofill work.
Saturday afternoon — move the authenticator (15 minutes per site)
For each site whose code lives in LastPass Authenticator, go to the site’s security settings, turn two-factor off and on again, and scan the new QR code into tigerpassword (the item’s one-time-password field). This is the tedious part and the part that keeps you from being locked out of your own accounts later. Do the important ones now and the rest over the week.
The following week — live in the new place
Use tigerpassword for everything and leave LastPass installed but unused. When you hit an item you forgot to move, the export you deleted is gone (good), but LastPass still has it — copy it across by hand and move on.
Next weekend — close the door
Delete your vault contents in LastPass, delete the account, and remove the browser extension. Cancel the subscription if you had one; the next renewal date is the money you keep.
Why we think the file model is calmer
Part of what makes leaving a hosted manager stressful is that your vault was never really in your hands. With tigerpassword the vault is a file on your devices, synced through the cloud you already use, sealed with your password and a Secret Key that is printed on paper you keep. Moving it next time — if there is a next time — is copying a file. The security page explains the rest.