LastPass enables unlimited devices syncing for free users

LastPass announced today that all users of its password management solution are now able to sync data across all their devices for free.

LastPass is a popular password management solution for desktop and mobile devices that uses the cloud for storage.

The company offers free and premium accounts to its users. Probably the biggest limitation up until now was that free users could only use LastPass on a single device class.

If you started out with LastPass for the desktop, you could sync your password database and other data only to other desktop devices.

If you wanted to use LastPass on mobile devices as well, you had to sign up for a Premium account to do so.

The same was true for the other way round. If you used LastPass on mobile devices, you could not sync to desktop computer systems unless you would upgrade the account to Premium first.

Premium accounts are not overly expensive at $12 per year if you pay annually, but the limitation put the company at a disadvantage when compared to services that did not restrict synchronizations.

Many cloud-based password management services -- Dashlane, 1Password or Sticky Passwords for instance -- have the same or similar limitations in place on the other hand.

The situation changes with today's announcement that all LastPass users can now sync their data across as many devices as they like.

The unlimited devices synchronization feature is no longer a premium feature but available to all users.

This means that you can install LastPass on the desktop as a free user, and sync your data to other desktop or mobile devices without signing up for a LastPass Premium account.

Closing Words

The move will make LastPass more attractive to users, especially those that require a password management solution on desktop and mobile devices but don't want to pay for it.

It will be interesting to see if the decision affects the number of premium subscribers of LastPass.

While Premium users get other options, e.g. more multifactor authentication options, shared folders, and desktop application passwords, it seems likely that unlimited synchronization of passwords and data was one if not the main feature for the majority.