Best approach for “Keep Me Logged In” using PHP

Last Updated : 26 Jul, 2024

We all have noticed the “Keep Me Logged In” checkbox in most of the websites we log in to. There are different ways and approaches to achieve this through code. The best approach among those is saving the User information in the user browser as cookies. Basically, we have to store both the Username and the Password in the user’s browser as cookies. Then every time the page loads the session variable will be set. Hence the user can log in without having to enter the Username and Password again until the life of that cookie expires. The example code given below is the way how to remember password checkbox works through PHP.

Example

php

<?php
session_start();
if (isset($_SESSION["name"]))
{
    header("location:home.php");
}
$connect = mysqli_connect("localhost", "root", "", "testing");
if (isset($_POST["login"]))
{
    if (!empty($_POST["user_name"]) && !empty($_POST["user_password"]))
    {
        $name = mysqli_real_escape_string($connect, $_POST["user_name"]);
        $password = md5(mysqli_real_escape_string($connect,
                                               $_POST["user_password"]));
        $sql = "Select * from login where name = '" . $name . "
                                   ' and password = '" . $password . "'";
        $result = mysqli_query($connect, $sql);
        $user = mysqli_fetch_array($result);
        if ($user)
        {
            // Saving the username and password as cookies
            if (!empty($_POST["rememberme"]))
            {

                // Username is stored as cookie for 10 years as
                // 10years * 365days * 24hrs * 60mins * 60secs
                setcookie("user_login", $name, time() +
                                    (10 * 365 * 24 * 60 * 60));

                // Password is stored as cookie for 10 years as 
                // 10years * 365days * 24hrs * 60mins * 60secs
                setcookie("user_password", $password, time() +
                                    (10 * 365 * 24 * 60 * 60));

                // After setting cookies the session variable will be set
                $_SESSION["name"] = $name;

            }
            else
            {
                if (isset($_COOKIE["user_login"]))
                {
                    setcookie("user_login", "");
                }
                if (isset($_COOKIE["user_password"]))
                {
                    setcookie("user_password", "");
                }
            }
            header("location:home.php");
        }
        else
        {
            $message = "Invalid Login Credentials";
        }
    }
    else
    {
        $message = "Both are Required Fields. Please fill both the fields";
    }
}
?>

Output

By understanding the above code by reading the comments and explanation you must able to execute the PHP code on the server with storing the Username and Password as cookies in the user’s browser. So in this way remember password task can be achieved.