Generator history should be fine-grained and persistent

paulhagstrom

I had to generate a password for something I was signing into on my phone, so I went into the 1Password 7 app, generated a new password, and used it, typed into my phone by hand. All good, I saved it in 1Password. Then I went to look it up so I could sign into the web site. And it did not contain what I remembered being in it. I guess maybe I hit the gear by accident somehow? But whatever happened, it seems to be completely unrecoverable. If I want to reveal the password, but instead hit the gear, it seems to generate a new password and seems to leave no way to find the old password. The item I have is there, with no history of previous passwords, and showing me a password that I know is not what I typed.

I have concluded that there is no way to figure this out, I have submitted a password reset for the relevant account, but in this specific case it is not automatic, I have to wait for some tech to come into work and process it, it's a pain.

My request is that there at least be an option to never throw away a generated password. I don't know if I hit the gear or not, that's just my hypothesis. All I know is that I have something saved in 1Password that is not what I actually typed into the new password field, and I have no way of finding out what the generator had generated before the password it saved. The overhead for saving a generator history is surely not that large, and I could have sworn it used to be more reliable in prior versions. I trusted 1Password to have saved it and so dismissed the screen without noting this password anywhere outside of 1Password, and it's quite frustrating. Waiting for the tech to reset my password is almost certainly going to cause me to miss the event I signed up for it for in the first place.

Anyway, this is basically a feature request: fine grained generator history, never delete without logging.

Thanks! Apart from this, I love 1Password. :)

---

1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided

ag_ana

Hi @paulhagstrom! Welcome to the forum!

If you have a 1Password Membership, you can retrieve any previous item version with the Item History feature, which will do exactly what you are asking ;)

paulhagstrom

Thanks. I signed in, and I don't see anything like a view item history, it just looks the same as it looks on my Mac in the app. For the relevant item, there is exactly one password, no previously used passwords, and the one password that is there is not the one I generated before typing it into my phone. What I'm requesting is not item-based, but generator based. I would like a history of what the generator has proposed, for any item.

ag_ana

@paulhagstrom:

I don't see anything like a view item history

Have you selected your generated password and clicked “View item history”, as per the documentation page I shared with you? If you do not see any previous versions of that item, it means that the value you are looking for has never been saved, so there would be nothing to retrieve in this case.

I would like a history of what the generator has proposed, for any item.

"proposed" as in "even if you haven't saved the password"? Basically, you would like to retrieve any password that has been suggested, even if you have never used it or saved it, and even if you clicked the button to generate a new one?

Am I understanding your question correctly?

paulhagstrom

That was what I was suggesting, yes. Because I didn't use 1Password to enter it, I used 1Password to generate it and then typed it into my phone. Through whatever circumstances (perhaps hitting a button that caused it to regenerate by accident, prior to saving it) I wound up with no saved version of the password I actually used. If I could rewind the generator, I could get back to it.

So, yes, I believe what I am suggesting is exactly that, the ability to get back a generated password even if it had not been saved into any items.

ag_ana

@paulhagstrom:

Thank you for the confirmation.

Because I didn't use 1Password to enter it, I used 1Password to generate it and then typed it into my phone.

I don't think this is a scenario we have considered (typing passwords by hand). 1Password data syncs between your devices so you can avoid typing anything by hand. Normally, you would save something that you need to access somewhere else, and you would copy and paste that value on your other device.

If you don't save something, I don't believe we can store it. And even if we could, I don't think 1Password should default to saving everything. If you need something stored, you should save it. If you don't, I believe that 1Password is doing the right thing in not doing something that you haven't requested.

Thank you for your feedback on this however! We will keep an eye out for this, in case we receive similar requests :+1:

paulhagstrom

Yes, I understand it's a pretty uncommon case. I'd turn it on if I had the option.

Just so it doesn't seem entirely ridiculous: the use case is this: a dedicated app for streaming television, and it's kind of clunky, so it doesn't present password/1Password options. I probably could have generated the password on my phone by switching apps to 1Password, copying, switching back and pasting, but I figured it would be the same if I generated on my computer and just typed it. But it's not a web page, it's a password inside an app, so it doesn't save to iCloud keychain either, nor present the option when logging in to use 1Password, it would always require manual swapping, copying, pasting. And it's so clunky it doesn't even have a forgot/reset password option, you have to email them to ask them to do it for you.

So, it might not come up often, but there are some cases where password/1Password support isn't properly leveraged by the app that needs a password.

I of course was planning to save it, too. The problem (again I'm guessing) is that I must have tapped regenerate by accident on my way to saving it. So then the actual password I used was lost forever.

Thanks for your replies.

ag_ana

Thank you for taking the time to explain this @paulhagstrom! I see how this feature would have been useful to you in this scenario. I am sure we can always improve how the password generator works, so we can certainly keep your feedback in mind. Perhaps there is something we can do to improve the experience even with apps like the one you described :+1: