change categories?

zone4646

can you edit an item category after its been set? you know update and change categories?

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Referrer: forum-search:can you edit an item category after its been set? you know update and change categories?

joshua_1p

Hey @zone4646

can you edit an item category after its been set? you know update and change categories?

There is no way to change the category of an item. You will need to recreate the item in your desired category.

Let me know if you have any other questions! :)

mopperle

Hi all, just switched from LastPass to 1PW and was going to ask a similar question. Reading this, it is correct that I can create a new category ba myself?

Tertius3

You can neither change the category of an existing item, nor you can create new categories. How do you intend to use categories? Just as grouping criteria, or are you using categories as data templates for new items?
For grouping criteria: use tags and group by tags. You can even nest tags by splitting name components with /
For data templates, there is no direct workaround, but you can add custom fields to every item, so every item can contain any kind of data. For a new item, choose the category whose set of fields most closely match your use case, then add missing fields as custom fields. The downside is you cannot sort and rearrange fields, but in general they can exist - that's better than no custom fields at all.

mopperle

I will use tags in the future, because, as you said, I want to group items.
IMHO the naming "category" is a bit misleading. I work with different DAMs which also use categories and there they have a different meaning. Using "type" instead category would have been better.
But as I use 1PW in 90% to store passwords for webbased access it is Ok for me. Everything else goes to secure notes.

Lidar532

The CATEGORIES half-baked feature is worse than useless as implemented and if the user can't add, delete, modify the items in CATEGORIES. As it is, when I imported data most items (such as bank account, Credit Cards, others) were completely missed by whatever mechanizm assigns CATEGORIES **now. Are there any plans to fix **CATEGORIES so users and decide what goes in each **CATEGORIES **item? Please remove or demote **CATEGORIES ** from the site until you have a more robust version of it.

GreyM1P

Hey @Lidar532

If you've had trouble importing existing data into 1Password, we'll be happy to help clean that up. Send us an email to support+forum@1password.com including a link to your post, and you'll get a reply from BitBot containing a conversation number, which looks like [#ABC-12345-123]. Post that number here and I'll be able to make sure your email reaches the most appropriate team. :)

vngn2000vishal

I am migrating from LastPass to 1password and it imported all my bank accounts/payment accounts/profiles/web accounts...into a generic private group (800 credentials) and now each one of them asks to manually create a new item in the appropriate category and MANUALLY copy paste each field one by one... This looks like a 2-year plan.

Shall I stick to LastPass or is there a better way to categorize it? The account was migrated as per 1password steps of exporting data from LastPass and then importing into 1 password

rheilbrunn

I can't believe that this issue still exists after years of it being an brought forward. How difficult can it be to give users the ability to change a category or add/change/delete from a master list. If it is necessary to keep standard set of categories, so be it, but not having the ability to move something is bad data management, IMO. Please make this possible.

davidmccorquodale

Surely, with all the regular updates, the 1Password infrastructure team could have built in the facility by now to permit a change in the categorisation of populated entries if, when first choosing and populating [and saving] the data, it subsequently is determined that the selection/choice of the original Category was inappropriate and a change is then needed. This seems pretty basic to me [I am not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination] so forgive my ignorance but judging from the plentiful threads on this issue, it seems a long standing problem and one that customers would clearly appreciate being rectified - myself included!

smarquina

I concur. This is WILD that you can't change the category. WTH?

davidmccorquodale

They’ll be a good reason for it I am certain [probably infrastructure based] but I can’t fathom out what that might be - a lot of people want and need the facility - hopefully they will consider it in the next build?

davidmccorquodale

Let’s hope a Team member might explain what the issue is….

Ben

Hi @davidmccorquodale

From an engineering perspective, it is a bit of a round peg in a square hole problem. Categories exist not only for organization but also to define the template an item will follow. For example, a Login item will have a username, password, and URL field. A credit card item will not have a username or password but will instead have cardholder name, number, expiry date, and other related fields. In order to function properly the program has some degree of expectation that items in a given category have the fields associated with that category. This has become less of a challenge now that the fields on items can be customized, but it isn't an entirely moot point.

There is also the business perspective that looks at the impact of what we'd have to cut from our current plans in order to address this ask. Our Product team is constantly evaluating what makes it on the roadmap and what does not. User feedback is invaluable in helping drive those decisions, but there are a lot of other factors to consider as well. For example, one of our main focuses right now is on passwordless and passkeys. Diverting resources from that would likely be a non-starter. I'll be happy to share the feedback from you folks on this subject with them, and hopefully that'll help push it onto the roadmap, but I can't promise that'll be the case. 🤞

Ben

voichould

I would like to move several items into a new category. Could you provide a step-by-step guide on how to do that?

ag_josephine

Hi @voichould,

You are not currently able to change the category of an item, if you are looking to do so you will need to create a new item within the desired category at which point, you can then delete the original item in the previous category.

davidmccorquodale

Might it be possible in the future for agile bits to introduce some method whereby an end user can generate their own template. I understand there are a selection of templates currently available. Nevertheless, they all have elements that may or may not necessarily be helpful or useful. It would be, I believe, a valued addition to the already comprehensive list if one could edit and design a customer focused template since all customers are likely to wish to record elements that may only be available in differing categories, but which could be pulled together into one user designed template.

jasonmicron

@Ben - I think you inadvertently hit the nail on the head with this statement:

"Categories exist not only for organization but also to define the template an item will follow."

The requests to change categories for end users comes down to providing better organization. However, since they are treated like templates, they can't be changed.

A "Template" implies you are locked in to certain constraints.

A "Category" implies organizational flexibility.

Example: I am a 1Password admin for my company, and we use 1Password for Teams. Multiple people have access to a same shared vault. User A creates a new entry using the top-left entry (Login). User B realizes the incorrect category was selected and it should have been "Server". Unless we have a staffed 1Password manager to delete / recreate the invalid entry, it renders the "Categories" section useless. And yes, almost 99% of the time, people just pick "Login".

I would like to propose renaming "Categories" to "Templates", which makes more sense for end users.
Bonus request: Rename "Tags" to "Categories", and allow only the vault owner to define those tags/categories for that vault to limit tag sprawl (and while we're at it, don't make tags/categories case sensitive).

I just spent 3 hours trolling through 300 entries individually, one at a time, cleaning up tags and deleting/recreating entries incorrectly set to the wrong "Category". And I have thousands to go, and they only grow by the hour. At a certain point, the hill becomes too tall to climb.

J_O_D

I wouldn't call it templates either. It's like object type, record type, item type, something like that. For me, the knowledge that categories are hardcoded is enough and probaby a term Template would confuse me more - as I would expect to be able to create/edit a template.

ag_tommy

Thanks for your invaluable feedback folks.

Steve M

I came here with the same question. Among other problems, I have many Login items I want to change to Wireless Router items so I get the QR codes.

I'm not asking for fully automated conversions, only the ability to see one old and one new item side-by-side so I can drag the old fields across to the new item, and hopefully be able to do it once manually and 1Password do the same for the selected, identical source Items. It's partly possible now to do single conversions with some manual effort, but the new item window is stationary in the center of the screen. On a 13" MacBook Pro it can be a challenge.

Being able to apply that mapping to multiple old items would be huge for users and a reasonable coding effort. Here's a use case for why this is important. I have forty-one "Passwords" item types I want to change to "Login" types. I don't know why they were created that way; I don't think it was my choice, and they all lack user names. Anyway, It's a simple conversion: Old password → New password, Old website → New website, and I have to remember and enter the username.

What I need is the ability to:
1. Select all 41 items
2. Choose a "Convert to..." menu item
3. Select a New Item type (maybe with a submenu)
4. See the old item's template on the left and the new template on the right, possibly with one item's field data shown on the left for a more intuitive UX
5. Drag fields from left to right for the mapping I want. See lines from old to new fields. and be able to move or remove them. If it's simple to pre-match the identically-named fields, that would be nice. The titles can transfer over untouched.
6. Click a button, and my mapping is used to create a bunch of new items from the old ones.
7. The final step could be nothing, which is probably best for budget. Other ideas are to have an option to Archive the old items with one click. Undo would be nice, but this can be manually achieved pretty easily.

Thanks for continuing to listen.

ag_tommy

Hey Steve M

I have shared the feedback with the team. One thought is if you use the new website refreshed version (I did not test with the current version) you could use drag and drop between the fields. I agree this might be challenging I am also using a 14" MB. It was a little so for me.

I was able to drag and drop from inside 1Password 8 using a credit card entry to a new wireless router on 1Password.com. Give that a try and see if it helps. I realize it's a little bit of extra steps. Perhaps it will fill the need.