Memorable passphrase generator
A passphrase is several random words joined together, such as "trout-canyon-mellow-drift". Each word from the 1,296-word EFF list adds 10.34 bits of entropy, so five random words beat most hand-made passwords while staying short enough to type from memory on a phone keypad.
How many words does a passphrase need?
Every word drawn at random from the 1,296-word EFF Short Wordlist adds exactly 10.34 bits of entropy — that is log2(1296), and 1296 is 64, so each word is four dice rolls. The table below shows what each word count buys, and the random-character password that would match it.
| Words | Entropy | Equivalent random password | GPU, fast hash |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 31.0 bits | 5 characters | instantly |
| 4 | 41.4 bits | 7 characters | 14 seconds |
| 5 | 51.7 bits | 9 characters | 5 hours |
| 6 | 62.0 bits | 10 characters | 274 days |
| 7 | 72.4 bits | 12 characters | 973 years |
| 8 | 82.7 bits | 13 characters | 1 million years |
Why random words beat a clever sentence
The famous XKCD comic that popularised passphrases makes one point people consistently miss: the words have to be random. "correct horse battery staple" is strong because a machine picked those four words with no regard for meaning. A phrase you invented — a lyric, a film quote, a sentence about your dog — carries a fraction of the entropy, because grammar and cultural familiarity shrink the search space enormously.
Cracking tools have modelled this for years. They generate candidate phrases from song lyrics, book text, and scraped social media, then apply grammatical templates. A self-invented four-word sentence might sit in a space of a few million candidates. Four genuinely random words sit in a space of 2.8 trillion.
Where a passphrase is the right choice
- Your master password. The one secret that unlocks everything else has to live in your head, and a six-word passphrase is the most entropy you can reliably remember.
- Full-disk encryption. You type it at boot, before any manager is available to help.
- Devices with terrible input. Smart TVs, consoles, and car systems make symbol-heavy passwords miserable. Words with hyphens are far quicker on a D-pad.
- Anything you might have to read aloud or dictate over a phone call.
For everything else — the hundred accounts you never type by hand — a random character password is denser and just as easy, because software is doing the remembering.
Choosing a master passphrase you will not forget
A passphrase you cannot recall is a locked door with the key inside. Generate one, write it on paper, keep the paper somewhere physically safe for the first month, and type the phrase from memory daily. Once recall is automatic, decide whether to keep the paper — for a master password protecting years of accounts, most people should.
Passphrase FAQ
- What is a passphrase?
- A passphrase is a password made of several random words instead of random characters, such as "trout-canyon-mellow-drift". It trades a longer string for something a person can actually hold in their head, which is what makes it practical for the handful of passwords you must remember rather than store.
- How many words should a passphrase have?
- Five words is a sensible default and four is the floor. Five words from the 1,296-word EFF list carries 51.7 bits of entropy; six carries 62. Use six or seven words for a master password or a disk encryption passphrase, where the secret protects everything else.
- Is a passphrase safer than a random password?
- Per character, no — a passphrase is less dense. Per unit of human effort, yes. Four random words are far easier to remember than sixteen random characters, so people actually use them rather than falling back on a pattern they can recall. The strongest password is the one that gets used.
- Does it matter that the wordlist is public?
- No, and this is the most common misunderstanding about passphrases. Security comes from the number of possible combinations, not from secrecy of the list. Five words drawn from a known 1,296-word list still gives 1,296^5 — about 3.6 quadrillion — equally likely phrases.
- Can I make up my own memorable phrase instead?
- Not safely. Song lyrics, quotes, and self-invented sentences follow grammar and cultural patterns that cracking tools model directly. Random selection is what gives the entropy figure its meaning — the moment you choose the words yourself, that number no longer applies.
More free tools
Every tool runs in your browser without an account. The generators, strength checker, and entropy calculator keep inputs local. The breach checker sends only a five-character hash prefix to Have I Been Pwned.
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Strength checker
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Breach check
A breach check tells you whether a password already appears in leaked data.
Entropy calculator
Password entropy measures how many guesses an attacker needs, expressed in bits.
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