Bitwarden CLI — Quick Introduction
Quick Introduction on How To use Bitwarden CLI (ak bw)
Introduction
Bitwarden is an open-source password manager that has become very popular.
[Best Password Manager for Personal, Business & Enterprise Bitwarden](https://bitwarden.com/)
Besides the Desktop app and Browser extension you can interact with Bitwarden via a cli tool
Setup
Create an account on Bitwarden Web Vault for free.
- The free tier includes unlimited devices, all the core functions and passkey management.
- Premium tier costs only 1$ per month and you get access to more features. It is very cheap and incredibly good.
Install CLI tool by running:
- MacOS
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brew install bitwarden-cli
- Linux
With node
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npm install -g @bitwarden/cli
With snap
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sudo snap install bw
- Windows
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winget install -e --id Bitwarden.CLI
Basic Use
Login
Login to generate a session key
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bw login
Set environment variable BW_SESSION with your session key as an environment variable to not include it on every command.
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# ? Email address: someone@gmail.com
# ? Master password: [hidden]
# ? Two-step login code: 11111
# You are logged in!
To unlock your vault, set your session key to the `BW_SESSION` environment variable. ex:
$ export BW_SESSION="*******"
> $env:BW_SESSION="*******"
You can also pass the session key to any command with the `--session` option. ex:
$ bw list items --session *******
Add the BW_SESSION generated into your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc.
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export BW_SESSION="**********"
Or for Windows Powershell add BW_SESSION to your $PROFILE
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$env:BW_SESSION="************"
List items
For example, to list items without BW_SESSION
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bw list items --session ******
Can be simplified with the following
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bw list items
Search items
To search items run the following
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bw list items --search {key}
For example, for bitwarden itself
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bw list items --search bitwarden
Get item
You can show a single item by running
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bw get item bitwarden
This will only work if only one item for the key exists (in this case bitwarden).
Get item password
To get the password as a stdout run
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bw get password bitwarden.com
### Get item totp (aka verification code)
To get the totp as a stdout run
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bw get totp bitwarden.com
### Get item notes
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bw get notes bitwarden.com
Templates
Templates are necessary in order to create items, to get the templates for item and folder:
item template
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bw get template item
# {"passwordHistory":[],"revisionDate":null,"creationDate":null,"deletedDate":null,"organizationId":null,"collectionIds":null,"folderId":null,"type":1,"name":"Item name","notes":"Some notes about this item.","favorite":false,"fields":[],"login":null,"secureNote":null,"card":null,"identity":null,"reprompt":0}
folder template
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bw get template folder
# {"name":"Folder name"}
Create item
You can create items by using the item template.
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bw get template item | jq ".name=\"Bitwarden\" | .login=$(bw get template item.login | jq '.username="username" | .password="mypassword"')" | bw encode | bw create item
Create attachment
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bw create attachment --file ./myfile.txt --itemid 16b14c89-65b3-4231-bd2b-15051a6d8g77
Create folder
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bw get template folder | jq '.name="My Folder"' | bw encode | bw create folder
Generate passwords
You can generate passwords by running
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bw generate
If you’d like to create different types of passwords, you can customize de prompt. For example, to create a passphrase with words
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bw generate -p --words 4
Or to replace the separator - with _
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bw generate -p --words 4 --separator _