"does not contain" option in smart folders

superflytnt

I see where this feature has been discussed but I still can't figure it out. I have a Smart Folder called "Work". The only criteria is: Title -> Contains -> Work

However, I have over 900 entries in 1Password and dozens entries with the word "network" in their title as well, which poses a problem. I would like to use a "does not contain" criteria so I can exclude items that contain the word "network" in their title. In other words, what would be idea would be:

ALL
Title -> Contains -> Work
Title -> Does Not Contain -> Network

Without "does not contain", how do I go about this?

littlebobbytables

Hi @superflytnt,

You're right, we cover contains but not the inverse. I'll need to ask why as that does seem peculiar.

Now given we don't have that particular condition all can do at the moment is offer a workaround and see what you think.

1. Create a new tag titled Network or whatever you prefer, the actual choice of word or words is yours. You can create a tag by adding it to a single entry (to avoid confusion later ideally an item with the word Network in the title(.
2. Search for all items that contain the work Network in the title, select all in the returned Item List and drag that selection to the Network tag. That will add the tag to every item in that selection. In other words every item with the word Network in the title now has a tag titled Network.
3. Perform a new search on All Items where Tag is not Network.

It isn't ideal, and it doesn't dynamically update like a smart folder but once set up it can be manually updated reasonably quickly. Hopefully though it will at least allow you to perform the search until a future update rectifies this. I can't make any promises regarding when or even if, but it seems like an oversight to me. I shall see what is said when I make enquiries.

littlebobbytables

Turns out we do have a ticket regarding this. I've added your question as a vote for the improvement.

ref: OPM-2607

superflytnt

Thanks. I can see the proposed workaround working the first time, but clearly falling apart over time. In other words, each time you allow 1password to automagically add another entry, you have to pay close attention to the new entry's title and remember to open the application and add the associated tag to maintain any sort of consistency. So what we are effectively doing is turning a 1-2 click operation into a substantially more painful one that honestly has no sustainability over any length of time, certainly not by any dedicated 1password power users.

It also defeats the purpose of having all those time efficiency features built into the software that I am sure the 1password development team is super proud of (and should be). The simpler approach is to simply add "does not contain" function in Smart Folders and Search.

Thanks for the upvote. I'm sure you've witnessed the one drawback to an up-voting system now. That's the fact that when users have given up trying to solve a problem, that's different than users who are still actively trying to figure it out. The latter are the majority of feature requests. I'm surprised this function hasn't already been implemented. I'm digressing...

littlebobbytables

Hi @superflytnt,

Admittedly the workaround has a manual aspect to it but I don't quite understand the sustainability aspect.

If you need to perform the search on a regular basis you can save two smart folders:

1. one shows all items with the word Network in the title.
2. one showing all items without the Network tag.

Then when you need to perform the search you select smart folder 1. select the entire contents ⌘A and drag to the Network tag. Then to see the true results you click on smart folder 2. Items with the tag already won't be affected and those without will be added. The process only needs to be done once when you need to perform the search rather than thinking about your vault each time you make an addition or modification.

I agree it isn't great at all, this isn't meant as anything more than a stopgap until some future version that can do this is released. Until that version comes along though I assume your need still exists and that this at least will allow you do so in the meanwhile.

I genuinely don't know why they weren't added when the search feature was first designed; maybe it was an oversight or maybe somebody thought there would be no use, that decision is probably long lost in the history of code submits in the versioning software. Now it has to pit itself against all the other feature requests and bug reports. Critical bugs get priority, popular requests are more likely to garner attention and so on. I'm not meaning to imply the request is being ignored but for example the recent 5.1 for Mac and 5.2 for iOS eliminated a number of bugs relating to syncing, something everybody will no doubt appreciate and needed to be fixed.

I hope my attempts at candidness haven't come across the wrong way. There would be no point promising you anything I didn't know for certain was going to happen (would you not feel rightfully annoyed if I promised and then we failed to deliver) or be less than honest regarding the processes every piece of software has to go through (every project as to prioritise otherwise it's doomed to failure). I understand why you want to see this, I understand the bewilderment that it wasn't there already and I can say the developers do too.