How to mark a login as a Favorite on Mac
I have never used Favorites, but my wife just asked me how to mark a login as a favorite, and it took me more than twenty minutes to figure it out. Searching the Knowledge Base and the Forums didn't lead me to an answer. I'm posting this comment to help other users avoid all of my mistakes, and to encourage an improvement in the interface and documentation.
The User's Guide says: "Favorite button. Click the Favorite button to quickly mark an item as a favorite. The star will become illuminated to indicate that it is a favorite. Click the illuminated star if you no longer wish to have the item marked as a favorite."
This answer doesn't give any hint as to the starting conditions, nor does it tell me whether I can do this from the browser extension, 1Password Mini, and/or from the full program. I tried all three, and none of them work as described. Maybe I was starting from the wrong place(s), but my main problem was misunderstanding the words in the explanation. In the full program, 1Password 6.3.3 for Mac, running on El Capitán 10.11.6 with all updates, I can select Logins in the sidebar, and then select a specific login that I want to turn into a favorite. Then I click the Favorite button, just as the User Guide instructions indicate. My screen changes, so that at the left is the sidebar; covering the right 60% is a blank space, except for the 1Password logo in light grey on the background; and left of center is a column which says "Favorites. Add your favorite items here for quick access." Since I have been trying this for twenty minutes, that "quick access" is ironic.
I've tried every way I can think of to "Add my favorite items here", and none of them work. Right-clicking does nothing. Clicking the Plus button on the right side of the screen gives me the chance to enter data for a completely new login, and for 16 other options. But aside from typing in all data, drawn from my memory???, into each field, I didn't find any way to "Add my favorite items here".
What I finally figured out was that in the full program, "Click the Favorite button" didn't mean Click the button in the sidebar labeled 'Favorites', with a star icon next to it. No, it means click the small star outline in the edit window for the login, to the right of the login logo, under the login name, and to the left of the "Send to" icon.
For someone who already knows how to do this, it probably seems obvious. But for someone who is looking for something that looks like a button, it is very confusing. That person (me) must avoid clicking something that looks like, is labeled as, and actually is a button in the sidebar. Instead, the user must click on an obscure outline in the data edit window, which looks like a status indicator, rather than a button.
Having finally figured this out, I see that I can designate a favorite from any of the versions of the program. It's counter-intuitive that you can edit the Favorite status of a login in the edit window, without clicking the Edit button. But that saves steps, so I am not recommending changing it. In the browser extension and 1Password mini, every other button in the edit window looks like a button. In the full program, all the buttons look like buttons except the Favorite and Send To buttons.
1Password Version: 6.3.3
Extension Version: 4.5.9
OS Version: macOS 10.11.6
Sync Type: Dropbox
Comments
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Hi @Nekoninda,
I'm sorry to hear you had some trouble figuring out how Favorites works!
From your description, it sounds like maybe you found some older documentation which might have been referring to an older version of 1Password, or maybe just wasn't as clear as it could have been. Hopefully our current documentation is a bit easier to understand: Add frequently used items to Favorites
In that knowledgebase article, we don't refer to the star as a button at all - we refer to it as a star icon (and there's even a screenshot to show exactly what we mean). The steps to do that in the Mac version apply to both the main app as well as 1Password mini / browser extension (the star icon is in the same place).
We're constantly trying to improve our online documentation, so if you have feedback about our current steps to mark an item as a Favorite (or anything else), please don't hesitate to let us know. Have a great weekend! :)
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Thanks, Drew_AG. The documentation that I quoted was the only thing I could find on the Agile websites, in twenty minutes of searching. If it is out of date, I recommend removing it. The link that you included is vastly clearer for me. It would be great if it had up in any of the searches that I did. Having good documentation is important, but there has to be a way to find it with a search, using terms and techniques that a divers group of users might use.
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You're very welcome, @Nekoninda! :)
The documentation that I quoted was the only thing I could find on the Agile websites, in twenty minutes of searching.
I'm really sorry you had trouble with that! When I go to our support site and search for "Favorites", the very first search result is the article that contains the "Add frequently used items to Favorites" section. However, that article isn't dedicated to how to use the Favorites feature - that's only one small part of it. So even if you did the same search from the same page as I did, it would have been easy to miss it. I think we can do better there, and I'll forward your feedback to our documentation team. Thanks!
If it is out of date, I recommend removing it.
I did a bit more digging, and I think you may have originally found the information about Favorites in our user guide here: Item Details
The information about Favorites there matches the text you included in your first post. If that's the page you found, it's for the current version of 1Password for Mac. At the top is a screenshot of the main app (with focus on the item details section), and that's what the rest of the information on that page refers to. The "Favorite button" section even includes a couple screenshots of the star button.
However, the thing that's missing there is where to find the list of Favorites - the part of the user guide about the sidebar explains that, but of course that means having to know to look there for that answer. So you're right, it's not as obvious or clear as it should be. You'll be happy to know that our documentation team is actually in the middle of a big overhaul of the user guides for each supported platform, so this sort of thing should be much easier to find and understand once that work is complete.
Having good documentation is important, but there has to be a way to find it with a search, using terms and techniques that a divers group of users might use.
I agree one hundred percent! :) As I briefly mentioned above, parts of our support site are going through a bit of a transition right now. Once it is updated, it should be much easier to find what you're looking for. In the meantime, I'm sorry you had some trouble with that!
We're always happy to answer any questions you may have about 1Password, so if you can't find what you're looking for, just let us know! :)
ref: AKB-552
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Thank you, Drew_AG. The revisions that you mention should make things easier for users like me in the future.
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:+1: :)
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