Why You Should Swap Passwords for Passphrases

[usonian]

3. Glad to help.

One clever trick (not my invention) was to hack the "passwd" command, so that when people entered new or changed passwords, they were checked against dictionaries on the way IN, when they were unencrypted. This was lightning fast compared to cracking them (with my white hat on) after they were entered and encrypted by the system.

And the usual culprits turned up in the latter. 12345, and a bunch of department-related and dumb/naughty stuff.

I very strongly recommend a password manager app. I use Samurai Safe. (1)
That way, I can create really obscure passwords for various sites (I won't share how I create them, though most password managers will offer to do it for. you) and gladly forget them, asking the app for the password when needed.

You can also save a PDF (optionally encrypted) of your passwords, in case you are incapacitated. Put the printout in a lockbox, or give someone that you trust the password.

(1) https://samarama.net/
For ios and macos.
Free always.