1Password for iOS doesn't display .eml files

dbates6

When I sign up for a new site, often times they will send me an email with details that I'd like to save, so I'll drag that email out of my Mac's Mail program to the Desktop, and I get a file there with an .eml extension. I then bring that file into 1Password (this is on Mac OS), where it will save it, and display it when necessary. Works perfectly.

However, I've noticed that (once things have synced up), when I try to open that same .eml file on 1Password for iOS. the program won't display the file, just the standard white background with the title of the file, along with its size that the program uses when it can't display the contents correctly.

If the desktop Mac version of 1Password can handle displaying this type of file, why can the iOS version handle it?

I'm on the latest versions of both iOS and the Mac OS.

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

Dave_1P

Hello @dbates6! 👋

I'm sorry for the delay in responding. iOS works a little differently than macOS does and, at the moment, you're correct that it's not possible to preview EML files using the 1Password for iOS app. Certain built-in file formats such as PDF can be previewed and one option here is to export the email as a PDF instead of exporting it as a EML.

When I sign up for a new site, often times they will send me an email with details that I'd like to save

I don't think that I've run into this sort of use case before and I'd like to learn more to see if 1Password can be improved to store the details that you need more conveniently. What kind of information is in the emails and are custom fields potentially a better way to store that information: Customize your 1Password items

I look forward to hearing from you. 😊

dbates6

Hi Dave,

Sorry for the delay in replying.

I first started saving the emails that I received as .eml files on MacOS when saving those same files in PDF format was a little less convenient, and less featured (links didn't often work properly, the formatting was wonky, etc.). Since then, PDF has gotten quite a bit better, and most of the links now work as expected, and the formatting is mostly correct. So it was just muscle memory that had me saving .eml files. However, .eml files are quite a bit smaller than their corresponding PDF files, since they're only the original email's text in basically an HTML format.

So, yes, I could export those emails as PDF and drop those into 1Password. But the .eml format works very well for my needs in MacOS and saves me space in my 1Password vault (since I have so many of them), so I was just hoping that we could make things a little more cross platform and move that functionality over to iOS.

If you guys aren't able to do that, I'll have to start saving things exclusively in PDF, and then go back and convert those hundreds of .eml files into PDF.

dbates6

Oh, and to answer the rest of your question... An email just seems to effortlessly save all of the details that I'd like, i.e. the date of the interaction, the particular email address that I used when I subscribed, the original URL of the site that I'm interacting with (they change over the years), and lots of little other bits of information that I wouldn't necessarily think to save in the moment. It saves me from remembering and then hand entering, all of those details.

Dave_1P

@dbates6

Thank you for the additional details! I've checked in with the team and on iOS we use native libraries to preview files. If those native libraries don't support a specific file type then preview for that file format won't be available. I know that this isn't the answer that you were hoping to hear and hopefully iOS will support more file types in the future.

The work flow that you have is quite interesting, if you'd like to save emails in 1Password going forward then I recommend exporting those emails as PDFs instead of EML files. And, while it does sound like a lot of manual work, converting the old EML files to PDF is the best option at the moment if you'd like to preview those emails on iOS.

Let me know if you have any questions. 🙂

dbates6

@Dave_1P

Thanks for following up with your team. Going forward, I will probably have to abandon the .eml format and adopt an all PDF workflow for this. In the meantime, I can look at my .eml files while I'm on Mac OS. It's certainly not the end of the world.

Thanks again for taking the time, and best of luck with future progress of 1Password. I'm a fan.

Dave_1P

@dbates6

Thank you for understanding and I'm happy to hear that you're a fan of 1Password. 😊