Locksy User Guide

1. 1

   Add Locksy to your browser

   It's free and you don't need an account. Pick your browser in the section below, or search for Locksy in your browser's extension store.

2. 2

   Set your master password

   The first time you open Locksy it asks you to create one password. This single password locks and unlocks every tab — there is nothing else to remember and nothing to sign up for.

3. 3

   Pin Locksy to your toolbar

   Click the puzzle-piece icon in your browser toolbar, find Locksy, and click the pin. The icon then stays visible, and it doubles as a live counter showing how many tabs are currently locked.

4. 4

   Save your Master Recovery Key

   Locksy generates a 16-character recovery key. Write it down or save it somewhere away from your computer. It is the only way to reset your master password if you forget it, and it works entirely offline.

Get it for

Google Chrome

Chrome Web Store

Get it for

Microsoft Edge

Edge Add-ons

Get it for

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox Add-ons

Want Locksy to work in private windows too? Open your browser's extension settings, find Locksy, and turn on "Allow in Incognito" (or "Run in Private Windows" on Firefox). Your master password works the same way in both.

1. 1

   From the Locksy icon

   Click the Locksy icon in your toolbar and press "Lock Current Tab". This is the easiest way when you're first getting used to it.

2. 2

   With a keyboard shortcut

   Press Alt+Shift+9 (on a Mac, Option+Shift+9). The tab you're looking at locks instantly, without opening anything.

3. 3

   From the right-click menu

   Right-click anywhere on the page — on the page itself, a link, an image, or selected text — and pick Locksy → Lock this tab.

The moment a tab locks, the page is taken off the screen and replaced by Locksy's lock screen. A small red padlock appears over the tab's favicon so you can see at a glance which tabs are protected, and the number on the Locksy icon goes up by one.

To get back in, type your master password on the lock screen (or use your fingerprint — see chapter 6). Locksy returns you to the exact page you were on. If you have several tabs locked and want them all back at once, use 1-Click Unlock All in the popup: enter your password once and every locked tab reopens.

1. 1

   Changing a shortcut on Chrome, Edge or Brave

   Type chrome://extensions/shortcuts into your address bar and press Enter. Find Locksy in the list, click the pencil next to the shortcut you want to change, and press your new key combination.

2. 2

   Changing a shortcut on Firefox

   Type about:addons into your address bar, click the gear icon, and choose "Manage Extension Shortcuts". Find Locksy and set your own keys.

Locking tabs by hand works, but the tab you forget to lock is the one that matters. These three settings cover you when you don't think of it.

1. 1

   Auto-Lock Timer — lock after you stop using the computer

   Open Locksy's settings, turn on the Auto-Lock Timer, and choose how long to wait: anything from 1 minute to 480 minutes (8 hours). If you don't move the mouse, type, or scroll for that long, your tabs lock themselves. On the free plan the wait is fixed at 10 minutes; Pro lets you set any duration.

2. 2

   Scheduled Locking — lock during set hours

   Pick a start and end time in 24-hour format, tick the days of the week it should apply to, and Locksy locks your tabs during that window. Use it to keep personal tabs shut between 09:00 and 17:00, or lock everything overnight from 22:00 to 06:00. Overnight ranges that cross midnight work fine.

3. 3

   Startup Session Lock — lock tabs when the browser opens

   When you reopen your browser and it restores yesterday's tabs, Locksy locks them straight away. It keeps watching for 30 seconds afterwards, so tabs that are slow to come back are caught too. This one needs Locksy Pro.

You can run all of these at the same time. A common setup is Scheduled Locking across working hours with the Auto-Lock Timer covering breaks, and Domain Lock permanently guarding your bank and email.

Domain Lock is the setting most people end up relying on. Instead of remembering to lock your bank each time, you add the address once and Locksy handles every tab on that site from then on — including new tabs, and including after you restart the browser.

1. 1

   Add a site

   Open Locksy and go to Domain Locks, or right-click on the site you want to protect and choose Locksy → Lock this domain.

2. 2

   Choose how wide the rule should be

   Type just the address to cover that one site, or put *. in front of it to cover every subdomain as well. The table below shows what each pattern catches.

3. 3

   Set what happens when you unlock

   For each site you can choose whether entering your password unlocks only the tab in front of you or every tab on that site. Locksy remembers what you picked.

If your computer or phone can already unlock with a fingerprint or your face, Locksy can use the same thing. It works through WebAuthn, the standard browsers use for hardware sign-in, so the check happens on your device and your fingerprint never gets sent anywhere — not to Locksy, not to anyone.

1. 1

   Turn it on

   Open Locksy's settings and switch on Biometric Unlock. Your browser will ask you to confirm once with your fingerprint, face, or security key to register it.

2. 2

   Use it

   Next time a lock screen appears, press the biometric button instead of typing. Your password still works as a fallback whenever you want it.

A lock screen tells anyone looking that there's something worth hiding. Stealth Mode removes that signal. With it on, the counter on the Locksy icon disappears, notifications go silent, and a locked tab shows the same plain "This site can't be reached" page a browser shows when a website is down. It looks like a broken connection, not a locked tab.

1. 1

   Turn it on or off

   Use whichever you prefer: the toggle in the Locksy popup, Alt+Shift+7 (Option+Shift+7 on a Mac), or right-click → Locksy → Toggle Stealth Mode.

2. 2

   Get back into a disguised tab

   Your tabs are still locked, not broken. Open Locksy from the toolbar and unlock from there, or turn Stealth Mode off to bring the normal lock screen back.

Guessing gets harder the more someone tries. Locksy slows each attempt down, photographs whoever is sitting there, and eventually locks them out completely. All of it happens on your machine.

The delays are counted in Locksy's background process, not in the tab, so opening a fresh tab won't reset them. Photos are stored on your own device and nowhere else. Open the intruder log from the Locksy popup to look through them or delete them.

Privacy Blur Shield handles the other half of the problem — the things visible on screen before anything is locked. It automatically blurs passwords, card numbers, email addresses and one-time codes as pages load, and blurs the entire page the moment you switch to another window. Pro adds control over how strong the blur is, per-site rules, and a list of trusted sites to leave alone.

You can protect your tabs properly without paying anything. The free plan includes password locking, biometric unlock, right-click menus, scheduled locking and incognito support. Pro lifts the limits and adds the automation features below. It's a single $2.99 payment, once, for good.

Weekly Privacy Reports are worth a mention: Locksy builds a private dashboard on your device showing what you locked, how many failed attempts there were, and a simple security score. It is generated offline and never uploaded.

I forgot my master password.

Use your 16-character Master Recovery Key to reset it — that's what it's for, and it works offline. Without the key, the password cannot be recovered by anyone, including us. You can still reset Locksy from scratch, which unlocks all currently locked tabs and starts you over with a new password.

A shortcut doesn't do anything.

Another extension or a desktop app has claimed the same key combination first. Go to chrome://extensions/shortcuts (or about:addons on Firefox) and give Locksy a different one.

Locksy doesn't work in incognito or private windows.

Extensions are switched off in private windows by default. Open your browser's extension settings, find Locksy, and turn on "Allow in Incognito" or "Run in Private Windows".

A restored tab says it can't be unlocked.

That was a bug in version 3.1.0 and earlier. Update Locksy to 3.1.1 or later and restored tabs will unlock normally. Each lock now carries its own permanent identifier, independent of the tab numbers your browser reassigns when it restarts.

Auto-lock interrupted my video.

It shouldn't — the timer watches for playing video and audio and holds off while media is running. If it happened anyway, check that the video is playing in the tab that's in front rather than in a background tab.

Do my tabs stay locked if I close the browser?

Yes. Tabs your browser restores come back still locked, and your password or fingerprint takes you straight back to the page you were on.

Does Locksy slow my browser down?

No. It sits idle until you lock something and uses very little memory.

How do I remove Locksy?

Right-click the Locksy icon and choose Remove, or use your browser's extension settings. Unlock any locked tabs first so you don't lose your place — locked tabs can't be reopened once the extension is gone. If something is wrong rather than unwanted, the fixes above are usually quicker than removing and reinstalling.

Locksy has no servers, no accounts, and no analytics. It makes zero network requests while locking and unlocking tabs. Your password, your locked-site list, your intruder photos and your reports all sit in your browser's own storage on your own machine. There is no copy anywhere else, which is also why nobody can recover your password for you.

Your master password is never saved. Locksy runs it through PBKDF2 with 600,000 rounds of SHA-256 — roughly twice what OWASP recommended in 2023 — and keeps only the result, which can't be turned back into your password. Checking a password takes the same amount of time whether it's right or wrong, so no information leaks from how long the check takes. Every install uses its own 16-byte random salt.

Is Locksy open source?

No, the extension is proprietary. Everything it does runs locally on your device with no server communication, and the GitHub repository at github.com/vansh-121/Locksy is used as the issue tracker and community hub.

Can anyone bypass the lock?

Not through the browser. But be realistic about what any extension can do: someone who can reach your browser profile on disk, or install software on your machine, is operating below the level an extension defends. Locksy protects an unattended session on a machine you trust — it isn't a defence against a compromised computer.

Do I still need a password manager?

Yes, they solve different problems. A password manager protects logging in. Locksy protects what's on screen after you're already logged in. Use both.

Can I use Locksy on a work computer?

Yes, that's the main use case. Lock the sensitive tabs, leave the rest open, and nothing you do needs an account or an internet connection.