When "Open 1Password To," Favorites is selected in Preferences > Mini, Auto Fill does not work.

GoShawn

Hello.

I'm running 1Password on macOS 10.15.5; 1Password Version: 1Password 7 - Version 7.6 (70600006) from the Mac App Store and Safari version: Version 13.1.1 (15609.2.9.1.2).

This post was originally going to be all about me whining and asking for help in figuring out why 1Password's Auto-Fill feature hasn't been working for me in over a year. Months and months of frustration was about to pour out of my fingertips into this submission, thinly masked with some feeble attempt to be pleasant as I tried to hide my angst. 😂

Luckily for all of us, it became something much different.

I'm a big attention to detail person. I know that providing as much context and description of my issue would go a long way to getting to a fast resolution. To that end, as I was typing this out, going back and forth between the editor and the 1Password app, I came upon a realization, no, a REVELATION that I wanted to share with the Support Team and the Community at large.

My primary use case is 1Password on macOS with Safari's Extension. I know about 1Password X but don't use it unless I have to open Firefox.

My 1Password vault has over 2500 items, not including the stuff I keep in the Trash but never delete.

I've tried several times to uninstall and reinstall 1Password from scratch on macOS, iOS, iPadOS, Android, and Windows using wonderfully detailed instructions like those that are provided here, and they never worked.

I've scoured the forums here on AgileBits, Reddit and more looking for some kind of clue, and hadn't figured out why Auto-Fill "stopped working."

I validated that URLs in my 1Password entries matched exactly the URLs on the sites I was visiting. I even used Copy & Paste when creating new entries or updating existing entries that had new login URLs to ensure that I wasn't missing anything.

Despite all of this rigor, 1Password was opening the right page, but was just not auto-magically filling the login credentials to any site I was visiting.

Over time, I just got used to it. Sort of. It never felt right and always, many times a day, it just bugged me that it didn't work as expected.

Until today.

25 years in various hardware and software roles in the IT industry and I was ready to throw in the towel. I couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. I was ready to be belligerent, sarcastic, and all kinds of other stuff. But most importantly, I just wanted 1Password to work!

As luck would have it, in the process of writing this post, and flipping back and forth to 1Password to ensure I was providing the correct details, I noticed a default setting from one screenshot of 1Password's Preferences > Mini that didn't match mine. Let me know if you can spot it:

Over a year ago (gee, what a coincidence), I changed how I use 1Password. Since I have so many entries in my vault, I decided to change 1Password to open to Favorites and not to Suggestions because the thought of looking at a long list of over 2500 entries was too much for me to look at. 😉

Here's what the default setting should be in 1Password > Preferences > Mini:

See it now?

So after changing the Preferences > Mini BACK to Suggestions, Auto Fill works. 🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️

Which changed the tone of this submission completely. 😂🤣😂🤣

Moral of the story: Defaults exist for a reason. They provide the best possible user experience for a very big percentage of the user base. 🙏🏻

2nd Moral of the story: PEBKAC is real!!!!!

I hope this little novel gives some folks something to laugh about!

So with all this as background, I'm pivoting from asking for help (aka complaining) to asking a question instead. I've looked everywhere online and didn't find an answer, and I don't see it anywhere here in the forums. (If anyone has search term suggestions, please post them so I can find the articles or documentation and give them a solid read).

Question:

Does 1Password auto-fill have the ability to leverage conditional logic so that when 1Password Mini is set to open to Favorites, and when a page URL matches an entry in the Favorites list, the auto-fill/auto-suggest works?

I guess what I'm asking, in simple terms, is this: can the "Open 1Password to" Suggestions functionality be applied to the "Open 1Password to" Favorites option too?

I'm envisioning the code from the Open 1 Password to Suggestions code being copied and pasted into the Open 1Password to Favorites function so that the auto-suggest & auto-fill will work when this option is enabled by the user.

From my 14-month experience, the answer is no. If not, could this be added as an enhancement?

Again, I'm not sure if this is possible today as I have no reference to know if this is a feature or not, but boy oh boy, would this solve so many problems for me.

I have over 2500 items in my vault but have ~25 in my Favorites because I use them ALL THE TIME. Being able to auto-fill & auto-suggest while having 1Password Open to Favorites would be fantastic. It would speed up my workflow and login experiences by a country mile. Especially with the new Auto-Fill features in the iOS/iPadOS betas.

I work for an enterprise software company and have been around software engineers, product managers, product owners, and more for a long, long time. I realize I may be in the very small percentage of users who have experienced this issue because I customize my use of 1Password to open to Favorites. I recognize and honor the struggle that software folks go through to, "make things work." It' s not as easy as what I "envisioned" above.

Yes, I can just go back to the default setting of Open 1Password to Suggestions and get over my fear of very long lists (or clearing out my vaults 😱👅) so that Agilebits developers don't have to modify code to accommodate us hoity-toity users. 😄

So why bother to submit this?

Because none of the auto-fill topics or posts that I've seen even address this as a possible issue or cause; at least none of the dozens that I looked at before spending an hour writing this! Some talk about Open and Fill, others' mention the setting, but don't really explain to a level of detail that would have given me a light bulb, AHA moment.

So perhaps, besides telling a long and hopefully humorous story, this post can help other users and the 1Password Support team by offering up another setting to check before submitting a ticket or escalating to Level 2 or 3 support.

At a minimum, perhaps a stickie note here in the forums that describes the pros and cons of using the Open to Favorites vs Open to Suggestions?

Thanks for reading, and I genuinely hope this helps others in case they are experiencing issues too.

If the Auto-Suggest for Open to Favorites enhancement request makes it into some future release, great. If not, that's okay too. It's not going to stop me from using or recommending this great bit of software.

I'm a very happy and fulfilled 1Password for Families and Teams user going back to the days before it was a subscription service. It's one app that I continue to recommend it all over the place and it's the first thing I install on any new device I get.

✌🏻, ❤️ & 🤗,

//Shawn

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1Password Version: 7.6 (70600006)
Extension Version: 7.6
OS Version: macOS 10.15.5
Sync Type: 1Password
Referrer: forum-search:autofill not working

Ben

Hey @GoShawn

Thank you for this very in-depth account of your experience.

Defaults exist for a reason. They provide the best possible user experience for a very big percentage of the user base. 🙏🏻

❤️

We try very hard to avoid adding preferences and instead focus on sane defaults that will work for the majority for exactly this reason. It is always difficult to tell people we probably aren't going to add the preference they want, but if we added every one that was asked for, our preference window would have to have dozens of panes. It would be absolute chaos.

I think what you've outlined here is a great example of how, in some cases, preferences can do more harm than good.

Yes, I can just go back to the default setting of Open 1Password to Suggestions

I think that's the answer here. Suggestions shouldn't be showing you all of the contents of your vault. If it is, something is misconfigured. :) There is a 3rd option for that preference, which does do that: All Items. You certainly don't want that one. heh

I guess what I'm asking, in simple terms, is this: can the "Open 1Password to" Suggestions functionality be applied to the "Open 1Password to" Favorites option too?

You are correct that this is not currently possible. I don't imagine we're going to make significant changes to how mini behaves at this stage of 1Password 7, but perhaps we can consider some sort of hybrid for future releases.

So perhaps, besides telling a long and hopefully humorous story, this post can help other users and the 1Password Support team by offering up another setting to check before submitting a ticket or escalating to Level 2 or 3 support.

Indeed. That's great. Thanks for sharing. :)

I'm a very happy and fulfilled 1Password for Families and Teams user going back to the days before it was a subscription service. It's one app that I continue to recommend it all over the place and it's the first thing I install on any new device I get.

That is so great to hear. Thank you so much for the kind words, and for recommending 1Password.

✌🏻, ❤️ & 🤗,

Likewise! 😁

Ben