Tags need lifting up and beefing up

bikerbudmatt

1Password has had a tagging system since at least v3. And I'm amazed at how hard it is to find and use.

You don't see what good tags can do? Here's a case I was working on this morning in my 1,000+ items vault:

I manage some Web servers. Some of them run WordPress, which most of us abbreviate "WP". I need to keep track of log-in information for the server itself, the WP installation, and the various WP accounts that I use to administer and test my installation.

In that last instance, I have to set up POP accounts on my server for each WP user account. There could be ten or more admin and test accounts under my direct control. Sometimes I want to see the whole chunk, sometimes just the user accounts, and sometimes just the POP accounts.

The naming scheme I use for items starts globally (domain_name.xxx), then the type of item ("WP", "POP"), and then the user name (user).

Using a smart folder search to collect just WP user accounts, I can collect everything under the domain name, and the type of item. But the user names will trip me up, because the test POP accounts sometimes include "WP" in the username (as in "WP_test_editor@domain_name.xxx"). Oops. Since there is no way to exclude a string in the smart folder search (only "is not"), that won't work.

SOLUTIONS:
I could manually change each of the POP accounts, and then change the information for each of those accounts inside the WP installation. But why should a documentation tool (documentation is 1Password's primary function) force me to change the world it is documenting?

I could create a regular folder and throw all the currently existing items that match into that folder. See where I'm going with that one? I just lost the convenience of smart folders.

Or, I could tag multiple items with the two tags "domain_name.xxx" and "POP", then create a smart folder that collects every item with those two tags.

The last solution is sort-of possible in 1Password for Mac 4, but it is barely documented (from what I can make out, only in forum threads), only works in one direction (and 10 minutes after stumbling across it I cannot recall whether it's dragging items onto a tag or tags onto an item), and only works with one item at a time.

I'm offering this observation as a strong encouragement to AgileBits to beef up this functionality. I know you have tagging in beta for 1Password for Windows, and that you are hiring more staff to document this ecosystem of products. I believe that we would all benefit from more resources put into item organization, and tags can be a strong part of that organization.

Megan

Hi @bikerbudmatt‌

Thanks so much for providing such detailed feedback here! It's always great to hear how users organize their data in 1Password and what we can do to make the app better.

I'm happy to pass your thoughts along to our document team and our developers, and if you notice anything else that needs polishing in 1Password, please do let us know! :)

GeniusRedacted

I also use multiple tags on items and would like to have tags "lifted up" and "beefed up".

One suggestion for "lifting up" is to restore the position of tags from the bottom of the password entry to the top of the entry as in v3.

One suggestion for "beefing up" is to restore the Tags column in the list view - this was the only way to see multiple tags in multiple items at the same time in v3.

Ahh v3, how I miss you.

Jasper

Thanks for the feedback! :)