The Simple Version
Password Mint uses your master phrase and the site name to mathematically generate a unique password. The same inputs always produce the same output — like a secret recipe only you know.
The Technical Version
- Site normalization: We clean up the URL (remove https://, www., paths, query strings) and lowercase it to ensure consistency.
- Phrase hardening (deterministic transformation): We normalize your input (trim, lowercase, collapse spaces), then deterministically capitalize 1-2 words and append a symbol+digit+symbol suffix. This means "My Phrase" and "my phrase" become identical internally, but the final hardened form is more complex.
- Salt construction: We combine a fixed prefix, the normalized site, and your version number for rotation.
- Key derivation: Using PBKDF2 with SHA-256 and 210,000+ iterations, we derive 64 bytes from your hardened phrase and salt.
- Password generation: We map those bytes to your chosen character sets, ensuring at least one character from each selected type, then shuffle deterministically.
Result: A strong, unique password that can be regenerated anytime with the same inputs. Phrase hardening improves consistency, but you must still choose a strong, unique master phrase — avoid common phrases, song lyrics, or personal info.