Apple’s upcoming iOS 26 will make it easier to import and export passkeys

Passkeys

Apple’s upcoming ecosystem updates are set to introduce a seamless, secure way to export and import passkeys across platforms and apps. As passkeys have grown in popularity in the last few years due to their cryptographic key pairing, generated by any device, to securely authenticate a user’s identity, replacing traditional passwords, and being used as the industry-wide standard for website and app authentication.

However, since their inception, passkeys created on a Mac, iPhone, or iPad were only available to the users of Apple's ecosystem, with no realistic way to move them to other popular platforms such as Windows, Android, or other third-party operating systems. Thankfully, this is changing soon.

As noted by Ars Technica’s Dan Goodin (via SixColors), the FIDO Alliance, which handles the specification for passkeys, has now worked to hammer out secure ways for different platforms to share data, without any signs of security breach. Along similar lines, Apple is rolling out native support for passkey import and export outside its ecosystem of operating systems, which is likely to arrive later this year as part of iOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, iPadOS 26, and other updates.

Moreover, this new sharing method will reportedly be end-to-end encrypted and require local authentication, like face unlock or biometric authentication, to proceed. It is expected to roll out later this year, and Apple's demo provides the strongest indication that passkey developers are seamlessly transitioning this service to more users without any OS boundaries.