1Password Windows places itself fore-most and steals focus when autolocking

Jörg B.

Good morning,

one rather annoying thing I've noticed recently in the new Windows beta (and still existing in 6.0.186d) is that whenever I keep the application running but in the background or i.e. minimized to the task bar, whenever it's auto-lock timeout is reached, the Window re-appears over all other windows and steals the focus.. which is very distracting and annoying.

It is annoying enough that I have to keep the main application / window open at all times when merely wanting to use the browser extensions and log in in the browser and it placing itself fore-most over and over again doesn't really help.

So basically it would be great to
a) have a non-intrusive mode back which does not require keep the main application open (the old/ 4.x Windows Version had an invisible process running as far as I remember) and / or
b) it not making that main application window / itself fore/top-most on auto-lock.

The 'Security' Setting only allows me to set an auto-lock timeout of 1hour max - so during a work-day I get a 8-12 of these focus steals... which IS annoying over time (strangely that label also says 'Lock after computer is idle for XYZ minutes' - however.. I am never idle on that machine, yet it auto-locks - so it's not configuring / checking for the computer to be idle but rather whether or not I use the application in that time-out time.. I assume).

Either way, I really do miss 1Password being unobtrusive :(

-Jörg

---

1Password Version: 6.0.186d
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided

MikeT

Hi @Jörg B.,

a) have a non-intrusive mode back which does not require keep the main application open (the old/ 4.x Windows Version had an invisible process running as far as I remember) and / or

We plan to add an option to allow you to keep 1Password mini running all the time, so the main 1Password app isn't required to be opened.

1Password mini is a separate view of the main 1Password app process, so this does have a bit of an awkwardness where sometime you have to open the main app before you can get to the 1Password mini. Windows also have some strict rules about bringing hidden or minimized apps to the front as well, this'd explain why you see some apps blinking in the taskbar, rather then showing up on top for you.

There are a few other minor areas that we will address, such as when you don't open the main 1Password app before you open the browser, it would open both 1Password app and 1Password mini at the same time in addition of opening the Helper not running tab in your browser.

I am never idle on that machine, yet it auto-locks - so it's not configuring / checking for the computer to be idle but rather whether or not I use the application in that time-out time.. I assume).

Right now, 1Password only keeps track of your activity within the main app window, that means 1Password mini isn't included yet.

We are going to improve this over time but we want to avoid tracking your idle activity. If we do this, we must install global system hooks where it monitors your keyboard and mouse events, which has caused system instabilities in the past like it did in 1Password 4. So, we're going to do our best to avoid this at all costs and focus on making 1Password more flexible with the app's internal tracker instead.

We will let you adjust the auto-lock timer to be more than a few hours, reset the timer based on your last activity within both 1Password mini and app, and more in future updates.

Jörg B.

Hi Mike,

thanks for the quick reply and yeah.. that all does sound good - I'm glad it's being on the roadmap & addressed.

Cheers and thanks again,
-Jörg

MikeT

We're using 1Password 6 daily here, so we do know about these annoyances. I keep nudging our dev team about it and hopefully, these will be addressed sooner than you think.

If you have any other feedback, we'd love to hear them as they do help us prioritize what's next for our customers.