Feature Request: Address book section in 1password
Can you please add a section in 1password for contact/address management that is separate from the "Identities" section? I have contact data that I want to keep secure and separate from my address book and the day to day syncing that goes on between my it, my devices, and the cloud. If $account/device is compromised, I'd prefer to not have all the contacts in one mass list, but I know with a secure container like 1password, I can still have access to the information I need, in a format I can use, without it being in something like an excel spreadsheet somewhere that may work but isn't really functional.
Yes I know I could use the Identities section, but if I'm already using that for its intended purpose, I don't want to mix in other contact information that isn't related to my identities.
I know there's been a bunch of discussion and requests for address book storage in 1 password in the past. The discussions are all closed and without more people asking, you won't know what people want.
Thanks!
1Password Version: 5.4.1
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: 10.11.1
Sync Type: Not Provided
Referrer: forum-search:address book
Comments
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Hi @illogicalfourms,
You're quite right, unless people say "hey, that's a great idea and I really want that too" we'll never know the true popularity of some requests. Just to say, while we occasionally will close a conversation ourselves, it's only when it was regarding a very specific problem and we've solved it for the person. Anything that is more general or if multiple people have engaged we do leave open... until the autoclose feature of the forum comes along which is based on inactivity. So if nobody has shown any interest in a particular period of time we close automatically it so really old discussions can't just be dragged up again.
It might be a complete non-starter for you, and it will depend partially on a question that I need to ask anyway so let's start with the question.
When you talk about contacts, do you imagine it basically using an item like Identities with all the same type of information? I ask because it would be important to ensure we understand what people imagine this would be. So is it that you almost want two Identities categories, one for the stuff you fill, one that details you simply want to store securely?
That question is both for understanding the improvement you would like to see as well as the possibility of a potential workaround right now. Could the use of a secondary vault that exists only to store identity items be a possibility here that works for you now rather than some unspecified point in the future? It would keep the data stored but you would have the ability to have 1Password mini ignore the entire vault in terms of filling etc. If this is a possibility you would mull over may I ask, how is the data currently stored, is it in the vcard format at all?
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Hi Littebobbytables,
I believe the value proposition is the 1password user experience in inputing/importing, securing, searching and modifying the contact data as needed - the same as any other section (including Identities) in the application across all platforms.
My basic list of requirements:
- Secure/encrypted repository
- Vcard field compatible based on common list of vcard fields
- Importable (exportable optional) into the repository from CSV or vCard format
- searchable across any field
Scenario: I need to communicate with a contact in my secure address book. I open 1password on my mobile device, search for the contact name, and copy phone number or email into mobile application (phone, mail, etc.).
Scenario: I screen a call from a phone number I don’t immediately recognize on my mobile device. I copy the phone number into my 1password search field to see if it matches anything in my vault. It matches a number I have associated in my secure address book. I respond to the call.
To answer your question, I believe that the Identities section has a similar field structure as Microsoft or Apple contacts, but I’d prefer to have a separate section for Identities and contacts. I know you created the Identities section for a reason, and while I feel that it could meet some of the requirements I’ve listed with a modicum of digital duct tape, I could also accomplish the same task by exporting my address book to CSV, password protect it in Excel and stick it in a True-crypt volume as I could with any of my password or account data. Again, it's how easy it is to use it and keep the data living and useful.
Hopefully this all makes sense. Please let me know if I can provide more detail or if I didn’t answer your question fully.
Thanks!
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Hi @illogicalfourms,
Thank you for the great description of exactly the feature you are looking for. That is really helpful to both me and our developers when I pass on your request.
While it is not everything you ask for, we do have a current solution that will get you part of the way to where you want to go. If you use custom fields in Secure Notes, you can set the field type to be an address, phone number or email.
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Eva_s,
Thank you for the alternative option of custom secure notes for storing contact information. While this is also very similar to storing contact information in my identities section and technically feasible, it's still very rough around the edges with some large room for error. Was their a benefit you saw for using secure notes over identities? Do you foresee this being the path the 1Password team would want users to take in the interim while a solution is flushed out and would their be a migration path?
I'll be very interested to know if the feature I (and others) suggested is something you can add sometime in the near future, and if not, what the barrier to development/integration is.
What I've proposed doesn't currently exist on any other platform [that I'm aware of] and would be an awesome addition to an already amazing cross platform capability. Thanks for passing my feature request along and also making 1Password fantastic and functional.
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While I can't help with your primary request, I'm wondering if you might benefit from a vCard conveter to import your vCards into 1Password either as Identities or as Secure Notes with custom fields. I'm in the process of rewriting my vCard converter, and would be love to get some users testing it out.
The vCard converter is part of my converter suite, but the one included was a quick hack, and I didn't like it. The new one is much nicer, and supports custom field creation.
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Hi @illogicalfourms,
Thank you for the alternative option of custom secure notes for storing contact information. While this is also very similar to storing contact information in my identities section and technically feasible, it's still very rough around the edges with some large room for error. Was their a benefit you saw for using secure notes over identities? Do you foresee this being the path the 1Password team would want users to take in the interim while a solution is flushed out and would their be a migration path?
I think Eva was just suggesting an potential alternative way to store contact information in 1Password, since you wanted to keep it separate from the Identities category. A different workaround (as littlebobbytables suggested) would be to create a secondary vault for Identity items that you want to keep separate from those you currently have in your Primary vault.
I'll be very interested to know if the feature I (and others) suggested is something you can add sometime in the near future, and if not, what the barrier to development/integration is.
We really can't make any promises about if/when a feature like that would be added. When we receive feature requests from our customers, we can forward those to our developers, but that doesn't guarantee those features will end up in 1Password. And when our developers decide to add a new feature, we don't normally discuss that publicly until it's been added to a public release, as there are too many factors that could affect implementation, and we certainly don't want to promise something that we can't deliver on.
As far as a barrier, I don't think there's a technical reason that would prevent something like that - it's more a matter of resources, priorities, and choosing which features would be best for 1Password. We receive many different feature requests from our customers and unfortunately we just can't add them all. That's not to say we'll never add a more dedicated functionality for contact information, but I wanted to be sure we didn't give you any false expectations about that.
As far as a way to get contact info into the current version of 1Password, MrC should definitely be able to help you with that, so just let him know if that's something you're interested in. And of course, if you need anything else, we're here for you! :)
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Well, in case you're interested, here's a sample of current state of the vCard converter:
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I had a little time this evening, so I added images to the converter. Here's the conversion of a vCard that contained an image, converted into both a Secure Note and and Identity. Can you tell which category is selecting and shown?
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AgileBits Team - (@Andrew_AG, @MrC, @eva_s)
Thank you so much for the suggestions and clarifications! I'm very thankful for the Identities and Notes categories that are already a part of 1password and utilize them quite a bit for their respective intended purposes. That said, I'm a bit apprehensive to use the converter suite @MrC has suggested, especially when it would require a complex conversion to get the contact data moved if the requested category/functionality is ever added into a future 1password version.
I'm sorry if it sounded like I was looking for a promise from the team to add this feature. I specifically didn't ask for a commitment for exactly some of reasons you specified. It's unfair to hold developers to a commitment made like this and is understandable when features and fixes - especially security related need to take priority over others. I had hoped there was some middle-ground where it could be determined if this was something that could be added soon.
It's also clear that @MrC has put considerable effort into the vcard conversion and formatting for the notes and identities categories. My reasoning for my earlier questions were rooted in the awesome UX that 1password already provides. It's clear the 1password team has put alot of time and energy into the user experience of the product - separation and ease of categories, searching, synching, and the look/feel of how we create and passwords; all of this adds up to a great product. While the alternative suggestions you provided are functional means to secure contact information, they can also seriously detract from the user experience.
Using Notes or Identities to store contacts - Less than 100 contacts may be acceptable, but trying to manually search for a note or identity intermingled with other dissimilar data, can be frustrating and take away from the positive user experience. Additionally, if a new "Contacts" category gets added into 1password, the first question that people who have followed this workaround will be: How do I migrate them from the alternative category to the new one?
Creating a secondary (additional) vaults - This creates unnecessary complexity for those that don't need more than one vault. Understanding a new process for opening and managing more than one vault, managing more than one complex master password, (yes you can add the complex password into the first vault, but again, this creates more steps, added frustration, and ultimately takes away from the positive user experience) and creates room for error. I'm fairly certain there was a reason the developers didn't develop 1password against a spec where users create separate vaults for logins, another for identities, another for credit cards, etc., but instead gave them a place to put them all in the same place and assigned them different categories to more easily manage their data. why should I do it for data that doesn't need to be separate?
Using converter tools - I really appreciate the workaround suggestions and effort that @MrC has put into the converter showing what's possible with a vcard and alternative categories. Nice work sir! I think it's a great that the functionality already exists to get the data into 1password, and now all that's missing is the form to get it inputted into the application. Unfortunately after doing a quick search on the support page, I can't locate the converter suite or any documentation around what's involved in the alternative process, which concerns me that it wouldn't be as straight-forward or tested as File, Import, vcard file.
I really appreciate the time you all have taken to chat about this and provide alternative suggestions. Hopefully my comments will give a bit more clarification about how [at least] one of your customers uses your awesome application and some of the concerns around potential workarounds.
Cheers
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Try here: https://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/30286/mrcs-convert-to-1password-utility/p1
Use the 1.08 Testing Bits version. It contains the new converter.
If you want to add the items as Secure Notes, add the option
--securenoteto the command. If you want custom fields generated, add the-aoption. The command will look essentially like:perl convert_to_1p4.pl vcard ~/Desktop/my_exported_vcards.vcf -v -a --securenote
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Hi @illogicalfourms,
Thanks so much for the feedback! I think it's awesome that you want to use 1Password to store all of the things, and I love that you're so passionate about this feature request.
I had hoped there was some middle-ground where it could be determined if this was something that could be added soon.
As we've mentioned above, we're happy to pass your thoughts along to our development team, but we just can't promise any more than that. As you might have noticed, we've recently begun beta testing a brand new product called 1Password for Teams, and the development of that has been keeping our team pretty busy. ;)
Using Notes or Identities to store contacts - Less than 100 contacts may be acceptable, but trying to manually search for a note or identity intermingled with other dissimilar data, can be frustrating and take away from the positive user experience.
I'm curious to see how you use the Identities category that differs from how you imagine using a Contacts category. In 1Password, I have my 'work' Identity (which includes my office address and AgileBits contact information), and my 'personal' identity (which includes my home address and other personal contact information.) I also have the addresses of friends and family stored in this category. In fact, my Identities category looks very similar to my own entries in the Contacts app, where I have one contact card with my personal information, and one with my professional details. Perhaps it's the name that's causing the trouble? I've never really been a fan of the category title 'Identities', I think that calling it 'Addresses' would be much more fitting.
The reason that I'm bringing this up is that, as has been stated earlier in this thread, we hear from many users with all kinds of category requests. At a certain point, it becomes infeasible to implement all of the suggested categories: we'd have an app with a nearly infinite number of categories that would absolutely overwhelm a new user who just wants to collect a few things in a secure place. It seems to me that contact information fits very nicely into the 'Identities' category, even if the title is a bit off.
Hopefully my comments will give a bit more clarification about how [at least] one of your customers uses your awesome application and some of the concerns around potential workarounds.
Again - these comments rock! Thanks for the detailed discussion here. :)
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