Sync “Needs passphrase”
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frqstar8night last edited by
Hello,
My saved passwords disappeared from Opera on Windows 11, and sync can’t restore them. I need help unlocking them without resetting the passphrase, because some of these passwords aren’t saved anywhere else.
What happened
My Opera account has always used Google sign-in. As far as I know, I never had an Opera account password.
On 13 November 2026, Windows had a sign-in problem and loaded a temporary profile. After that, Opera showed no saved passwords and said “Synchronization has encountered a problem”.
Settings → Synchronisation shows “Confirm your identity to enable encryption”. The encryption option is “Encrypt only synced passwords with your Opera credentials”.
opera://sync-internals shows: User Actionable Error: Needs passphrase, Passphrase Type: Implicit passphrase, Cryptographer has pending keys: true, and the Passwords data type is in an error state.What I’ve tried
On 13 November 2026, I set an Opera account password for the first time. Confirming my identity with that new password did not unlock my passwords.
Confirming my identity with Google sign-in did not unlock them.
On 14 November 2026, I signed out of Opera on the PC and signed back in with Google. It still doesn’t work.
I signed in on my phone with Google. It says “Synchronisation is paused” and asks for a password.Current state
sync.opera.com shows 425 Passwords and 50 Preferences greyed out as encrypted, with a “Reset Passphrase” link. (On 13 November it briefly showed 249 passwords, then 425.)
I have not reset the passphrase, because I need these passwords back.My questions
My account used Google sign-in when these passwords were encrypted. Which credential is needed to unlock them now?
Did setting an Opera password on 13 November change what’s needed to unlock the existing encrypted passwords?
Is there any way to recover the 425 encrypted passwords without resetting the passphrase?Opera 140.0.6074.18 (Stable), Windows 11 Pro.
Thank you for any help.
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frqstar8night last edited by
@leocg Thank you for the suggestion. On the PC, “Confirm your identity to enable encryption” opens auth.opera.com/account/v3/desktop/login/confirm-password. When I enter my Windows password there, it says “Password is incorrect”. The only password that page accepts is the Opera account password I created on 13 November, and that one doesn’t unlock the encrypted passwords.
To be clear: I have never set up a sync passphrase or encryption password myself. My account was always used with Google sign-in, and the encryption setting is the default “Encrypt only synced passwords with your Opera credentials”. So whatever credential was used to encrypt my passwords was set automatically by Opera, not by me.
Could you or Opera staff please help with:
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For an account that only ever used Google sign-in, what does Opera use as the “Opera credentials” to encrypt synced passwords?
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Did creating an Opera password on 13 November change that credential, so my old encrypted passwords can no longer be unlocked?
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Can Opera staff check my account and help me recover the 425 encrypted passwords without resetting the passphrase?
sync.opera.com still shows 425 encrypted passwords, and I have not reset the passphrase.
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
@frqstar8night said :
For an account that only ever used Google sign-in, what does Opera use as the “Opera credentials” to encrypt synced passwords?
I have no idea.
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
@frqstar8night said:
Did creating an Opera password on 13 November change that credential, so my old encrypted passwords can no longer be unlocked?
Passwords/Data are encrypted locally, before being uploaded, so changing the password doesn't affect the synced passwords already on the servers.
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
@frqstar8night said:
Can Opera staff check my account and help me recover the 425 encrypted passwords without resetting the passphrase?
Unfortunately, no one can decripte your passwords, because of what I said in the previous post.