Any news on bringing folder support to subscription model?

pwhelper4tx

I've been a registered user of 1Password for a while now. Drawn to the syncing method of the subscription model, I ran the trial version for a month. While I know some balk at the subscription model, I myself see the benefit -- no, I'm not a shill -- and as a software developer myself I can also appreciate the company needing a revenue stream to continue supporting the product. However, the thing that just killed it for me was discovering that going to the subscription model resulted in the LOSS of a feature I found quite valuable: folders. I know there has been some confusion with respect to folders and those who feel that employing folders with tags is somewhat redundant. But, folders enable one to store data in a hierarchical manner making the view and management of the data therein so much easier, and the loss of that feature has greatly impacted my use of the 1Password so I returned to the old model which thankfully has preserved the feature. So my "open letter" question here on the forum to Agilebits is: have there been any evolving internal discussions about possibly bringing folder functionality to work with the subscription model? Any change of heart?

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1Password Version: 6.6.4
Extension Version: 664002
OS Version: macOS Sierra 10.12.4
Sync Type: WLAN

Drew_AG

Hi @pwhelper4tx,

Thanks for writing in to ask us about this!

As you already know, in 1Password.com accounts, folders were replaced by tags, largely because tags serve the same basic function as folders. Also, the advantage of tags is that you can assign multiple tags to each item (whereas an item could only be added to a single folder).

But you're right - the advantage of folders was that you could create a hierarchy of folders within folders, and it sounds like that was an important feature for your workflow. I'm sorry the lack of that feature negatively impacted your use of 1Password!

I don't believe we currently have plans to bring folders to 1Password.com accounts, as that would be a mostly redundant feature. Instead, I think it's more likely that our developers would add some sort of system of "nested tags" (although I don't know if that's something they've considered). If we added that, would it be a suitable replacement for you?

Out of curiosity, would you mind elaborating a bit on how you use folders to organize your items, and how that's helpful for your workflow? If our developers know more about how that feature helps the customers who use it, that might help convince them to consider a similar feature for the future. Thanks! :)

pwhelper4tx

Let’s say I have a folder structure that looks like the following where names preceded by an ‘o’ are folders and those preceded by an ‘-‘ are actual items/cards.

o Financials
    o Bank Accounts
        - Checking Account
        - Savings Account
    o Credit Cards
        o MasterCard
            - CapitalOne
            - Bank of America
            o CLOSED
                - USAA Credit Union
        o Visa
            - ABC Credit Union
        o American Express
            - Gold account (personal)
            - Work account

If say I close my CapitalOne MasterCard, I can click on the Financial folder and quickly drill down to the CapitalOne card with a couple mouse clicks and then drag it to the CLOSED folder. Done. I don’t have to scroll down a potentially long list of tags on which I had labelled the CapitalOne card with a tag like “MasterCard” (or maybe just “MC” but forgot that’s how I labelled it). Further, I don’t have to edit the card and add a new tag with “CLOSED” in it either. Everything is filed nice and tidy. If I wanted to represent this with tags, then I could assign multiple tags per each card and when doing so try to remember ALL of the same, similar tags I had grouped other credit cards. For example, let’s see I had only used tags and hence labelled my ABC Credit Union card with the tags: “financials” “credit cards” “visa”. If I get a new visa and upon entering the card create the tag “visa”, I will want to remember that I should also add the tags “financials” and “credit cards”. I don’t want to have to remember the set of tags I had applied to something similar or have to go look a similar one up to learn what tags I used. With folders, I don’t have to do that. And, like the example I provided, when closing an account I can just drag it to that CLOSED folder without re-editing the card first, adding a “closed” tag to it and saving it. With a folder, I wouldn’t even see that old closed account unless I clicked into that CLOSED folder. If said closed card still had the MasterCard tag on it — which I’d most certainly would retain — then a search on just the tag MasterCard to locate all such cards would display the CLOSED account that I most likely don’t even want to look at if I’m seeking a MasterCard to make a purchase. Some may ask, well, why don't you just delete that old account you closed instead of saving it off into a CLOSED folder? There can be a number of reasons for that, for example: 1) requesting the issuing bank to close the account, but one still has a balance on it to pay off, or perhaps 2) when authenticating to a credit reporting agency or checking the accounts reported therein. The scenarios are endless.

Now, someone else suggested I could create multiple vaults to separate some of these kinds of things, but then that’s just a way of reintroducing folders, albeit in just a single hierarchy, way. I wouldn’t want to go to the effort to create an entire CLOSED vault just for closed credit cards any more than I’d want to create another vault for “OLD” for prescriptions that I’m no longer taking but want to retain record of it for some specific reason or another.

The point is, especially on the surface, it is indeed easy to think of folders and tags as redundant, but when pondering some specific use cases it becomes clear that they aren’t. It didn’t become so clear to me until I upgraded to the subscription model and lost the folder functionality. On the flip side, I certainly can and do appreciate the value prop with tags enabling one to assign multiple ones per item. However, having said that another way to accomplish that with the folder structure instead is to enable a user to create symlinks such that a given item could “appear” in multiple folders simultaneously, but I digress. That model might be more confusing to people, especially those unfamiliar with that type of mechanism.

AGAlumB

@pwhelper4tx: You're absolutely right that folders can do some things that tags can't do. But the problem is that they do so only at the cost of greater complexity for the app itself, syncing, and also for the user. I used to do exactly the sort of thing you describe, and it worked well. I only stopped as my vault grew much faster than I could manage it, and it simply became infeasible for me to maintain the structure. That's when I discovered tags. I agree that folders are in some ways more...powerful? Not sure that's the right word, except maybe in the sense that they exert a power over me that really isn't matched by tags. I'm less attached to tags, but at the same time they're not weighing me down either by giving me even more busywork to do.

I think that you're on to something that there are needs which aren't met by tags, but — with regard to myself at least — I disagree that all of these needs are a net benefit. We definitely want to continue to improve how 1Password helps us manage our data, but I think it's important not to get hung up on a "tags versus folders" debate since what's really important is giving people tools that help make things easier rather than harder. Cheers! :)