Magic links take the 'I forgot my password' workflow, and:
1. Stop labelling it with a confession.
2. Stop forcing the user to reset their password when they demonstrably don't have their password manager ready to store it. [Whether that be 1Password, or just autofill in google chrome]
As the only auth method, it isn’t great. As an option? I wish it were universal. Anything other than those or passkeys creates more issues in your mum's case. And passkeys are new.
(That said – If we’re distinguishing between magic links and email OTPs, there’s really no good reason not to have both in the same email, and the latter is better for the public library use case.)
If one doesn't want to regenerate passwords, don't log people out. The only reason this "workflow" works is that email sessions work for years, sometimes decades, without nagging users to re-login.
Sites, do yourself a favor and store active sessions indefinitely and the only password-dealing scenario you'll ever see will be (1) at sign up, once per user, (2) when users clear cookies, which the login-problematic types rarely do for obvious reasons.
95% of my family password support is the sites that log them out on their own.
Edit: grammar/pronouns