Chrome could soon autofill OTPs that you receive on Gmail

Google is testing a new feature on Chrome that would theoretically fill OTPs automatically if you get them via Gmail.

On the latest version of Chrome Canary (v154.0.8025.0), there’s a flag (#autofill-gmail-otp) which is titled “Enable Gmail OTP Autofill.” The description states that it works on all 4 common desktop platforms, which are Windows, Linux, macOS, and ChromeOS. It enables retrieval and filling of  OTPs that you get on Gmail.

I’ve tested out the functionality of this feature by signing into one of my Gmail accounts. Despite the OTP successfully arriving in my Inbox, the autofill feature failed to work, and no OTP was automatically filled in the text box. So, I don’t think this flag is functional yet, at least not on macOS.

Interestingly, we have more information about this OTP autofill feature except for the flag in Canary. A recent Chromium commit has the feature flag “kAutofillGmailOtp”; this flag is supposed to ‘guard’ Gmail OTPs and autofill.

Information about the “kAutofillGmailOtp” feature flag and the Chrome Canary flag was initially spotted by the folks at Windows Report.

Back to the Chromium commit, it specifically mentions that the flag is currently off by default. So, once this flag becomes functional in Canary (which it isn’t right now), Chrome can look for OTPs in your Gmail inbox. Once it’s ready to use, it should show the OTP as an autofill suggestion in the text box of the website you’re signing into.

Since Google didn’t really issue an ETA for this feature or officially announce it, we don’t know when it’ll appear in the stable version of Chrome. It could take months; the flag is only available to enable in Canary, but is non-functional. How the browser will handle multiple OTPs in the inbox and know how to match the right one to the correct website is presently unknown.

In other Chrome news, the v152 update has started rolling out with various important security fixes. More on that here. Additionally, the familiar three-dot menu is getting a design tweak soon.

Featured image: AI

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