Google Delays Third-Party Autofill in Chrome on Android

In October, Google announced that it would update Chrome on Android to support third-party autofill providers. This was originally set to appear in Chrome 131 in November. But that milestone apparently came and went, because Google revealed today that it will instead make the change in Chrome 135, which arrives in April.

“Reflecting on feedback from autofill service developers, we’ve decided to shift the schedule and allow the third-party autofill services from Chrome 135,” Google developer advocate Eiji Kitamura writes in the Android Developers Blog. “Native Chrome support for third-party autofill services on Android means that users will be able to use their preferred password manager or autofill service directly in Chrome, without having to rely on workarounds or extensions. This change is expected to improve the user experience and security for Android users who use third-party autofill services.”

Since announcing the change, Google has improved the user experience and fixed bugs, and it’s added two new capabilities based on feedback: An autofill provider can now query Chrome settings and learn whether the user wishes to use a third party autofill service, and a new capability that lets autofill providers deep link to the Chrome settings page where users can enable third-party autofill services.

The delay is designed to help developers implement these new features. So this new feature will now appear in Chrome 135, which reaches beta on March 5 and then stable on April 1.

If you want to use a third-party autofill service in Chrome for Android today, you can do so using the instructions found here.