Bookmarks manager?

prime

So with me using different browsers on different computers, how about making it so I can import all my bookmarks somehow? 1Password already has most of my websites already in it, so maybe a section to have the bookmark links by themselves, and then add bookmarks to sites that don't have a login?

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

AGAlumB

@prime: Honestly, though I never think of it this way, that's pretty much what I use 1Password for already: bookmarks. I have some "Logins" saved that are just URLs. Importing directly from browsers is an interesting idea though. I don't think I've heard of it before. I'd personally never considered it because it's been at least a decade since I actually used bookmarks in browsers (using more than one really puts a damper on that). I don't believe that @MrC 's converter supports anything like that currently, but I wonder if it would be possible to do something with that. Do any browsers offer an export function? If not, that would make it problematic for either 1Password or the converter. Interesting idea though!

wkleem

Agilebits had a bookmark manager I never used. It was called AllBookmarks but it was Mac only and now deprecated. :(

fryrpc

Is there an easy way to achieve this. I tried going to the site I wanted to bookmark and then tried to use 1password in the browser to do a dummy save login but this didn't appear to do anything.
I was looking at book marking sites with a bookmark tag that do not require a login and are just bookmarks and storing them in a vault to allow for portable bookmarks. I currently use xmarks from lastpass but need to migrate away from both xmarks and lastpass - so 1password is my replacement.

Ben

1Password wasn't designed to be a bookmarks manager, though it does have some similar characteristics in so far as Login items are concerned. You can leave the username and password fields blank, and just fill in the website field, when creating a Login item manually, but it feels like a kludge.

All of the major browsers have a way to sync bookmarks now -- at least Firefox, Chrome, and Safari do. I'm less familiar with other offerings.

Personally I find that I rarely if ever actually use bookmarks anymore. With the way browsers auto-complete URLs in the address bar now I just don't find them to be that necessary.

I'm not sure we really want to get back into the bookmark manager space (again), but if there is a demand for this I'm sure we can at least consider it further.

Thanks.

Ben

prime

@brenty I think most browsers do export.
@Ben yes, all the big browsers sync, but not with each other. There are plug-ins/extensions for this, so I can sync Firefox with Chrome, but it's a pain. And yes, the auto-fill helps, but not with all. You delete the cookies and the auto fill is useless. I have folders set up in my browsers for security links, vacation ideas, hobbies, and all sorts of things. The auto-fill is also good if you remember part of the URL also, I have probably over 500-700 bookmarks, I'm not going to remember them all. I'll see a vacation idea, and save it in the vacation folders. Then when my wife and I talk about vacations, I go to that folder and look at my ideas.

I know 1Password wasn't designed for this, but it also wasn't designed for OTP a few years ago either.

I just thought this would be a cool idea since 1Password works across platforms. Under categories, have a bookmark spot.

Ben

Thanks for the feedback, prime. :) Indeed we do seem to use the internet a bit differently, so now I understand your use case better.

Ben

prime

Thanks @Ben we all use stuff differently. With this idea and the 1Password Broswer in iOS, I can almost make 1Password as my main browser. It just seems like it's already half way there with the logins part of 1Password :)

Ben

:+1: :)

Ben

AGAlumB

@brenty I think most browsers do export.

That was my sense too, but I'm having trouble finding concrete information on this.

@Ben yes, all the big browsers sync, but not with each other.

Indeed, that's why I've been using 1Password as my de facto bookmarks collection.

I just thought this would be a cool idea since 1Password works across platforms. Under categories, have a bookmark spot.

It's something we can consider. In the mean time, I almost think that a separate "Bookmarks" vault would be helpful, to keep that separate from the main stuff like login credentials. If I had more I'd do that myself. Cheers! :)

MrC

@prime, what platform and browser(s) are you primarily using? Would a converter work for you?

@fryrpc - can xmarks export its bookmarks, or is its database a plain, non-encrypted text file? Same questions for you as above.

prime

@mrc I am willing to try. I can try xmarks tomorrow to see if it exports. I think it does, but I want to try before saying yes. I use Vivaldi and Firefox mostly.

Thanks!

fryrpc

I use Chrome, Firefox and Safari on a number of machines hence why I used XMarks to keep a common set of bookmarks :-)
It has the ability to export to HTML - Shame it is not CSV - I could still manually copy and paste from the text version of the HTML file - here is a sample of the file produced by the export.

[snip]

MrC

Hi @prime, @fryrpc ,

The HTML export format for xmarks is really trivial, so if you want a converter, I'm happy to create one if you'll use it!

What it cannot do is synchronize with your existing Logins in 1Password. You basically want to think of it as a one-time export/convert/import process. Let me know if this will be useful to you.

prime

@MrC thanks, but I probably wouldn't use it. The xmarks isn't bad, and does the job. It was just an idea I was thinking about because I trust 1Password with my stuff more than others.

AGAlumB

1Password already covers Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows, but it might make even more sense as more platforms are supported in the future. ;)

fryrpc

@MrC Thank You for your review and offer.
I set up a BookMarks vault in 1password and populated it manually with some of my bookmarks from XMarks just to see how it would operate. I decided afterwards that it was better to just use Chrome browser built in sync to handle my bookmarks and use Chrome on all devices that need access - google allow you to encrypt all the sync data with your own passphrase, instead of just your sync'd passwords with your account password - not that I store any passwords there anyway :-)

Ben

Thanks for the update @fryrpc. :)

Ben

prime

So I found an app, and it's not bad. My issue is, I can't have a folder in a folder. I have My vehicle, the listing off websites, then I'll have a folder "recall" and "Radio", so this app won't do this under the free tier. It's $3 a MONTH!!!! if it was $1 a month, I would thing about it. I have the family 1Password for $1 more a month, and it does A LOT MORE!

EDIT: If I pay a year at a time, it's $2 a month, but still way too much IMO.

XIII

Pinboard is good for storing bookmarks.

Pinner is a nice iOS App for Pinboard.

Note that Pinboard, like 1password.com, uses tags, not folders.

prime

Thanks! I'll look at those. The one I was looking at had privacy issues too. They don't supper "do not track" and admitted they sell info. So they charge me, and sell my info. :angry:

wkleem

I wonder if you have considered One Note or Evernote? I have Evernote but I am using it as a pasteboard. I use it for clippings with the Evernote Clipper Extension.

prime

@wkleem thanks for the idea. I might see if I can do something with that.

IMO Safari is the best for IOS. I am not a fan of Chrome and I use Vivaldi for my Linux computer. I use Xmarks to sync to Firefox from Vivaldi, and use Firefox on my iOS stuff. Firefox on iOS is junk at saving bookmarks. I can't pick what folder I want to save something in... unless I am doing something wrong.

flomeh

@Ben, you make some valuable insights as to the decline in the need for bookmark tools, but I actually have an argument FOR the implementation of bookmarks into 1Password.

Simply put, 1Password is creating a demand for bookmarks. Hear me out.

1Password users initiates contact with the app in several ways, but two main ways seem to take precedence (at least for me).

1. A user is already on the website and invokes 1P to login.
2. A user needs to visit a website and invokes 1P mini to take them directly to the site.

Because of entry point number 2, and the great features we've been given with 1P (tagging, vaults, etc..) we are able to have hundreds of websites and jump to any one based on tags. So, say I want to login to some forums to get some conversation updates. I invoke 1P mini and type "Forums," which pulls up all of my logins tagged with Forums. I can further narrow those options down by typing more. It's essentially a cross-platform spotlight which searches your saved websites.

1Password is training the user to habitually invoke it to get to their most visited websites. Yes, reddit, google, and others will always just be easily accessible via browser, but what about those obscure Software Development blogs you read? Do you need to remember all of those URLs? That's where 1P comes in for me. I simply take your advice and leave out username/passwords and tag the items as "Bookmarks," which allows me to simply use 1P as a complete bookmark/login manager. There are two easily implementable things missing here:

1. The ability to add a distinct "bookmark item" rather than a login item.
2. The ability for "Save New Login" to work on websites with no login forms.

I would argue that 1Password itself wants to be more than just a "password tool," which is obviously why you've added some of the other great features like document objects, credit cards, account numbers, etc... As people start to depend on 1P and habitually invoke it to get to their website of choice, they will naturally want to invoke other sites that do not have logins as well.

That's my case. Sorry for the typos.

AGAlumB

@flomeh: Thanks for your comments! You're right. Honestly, as mentioned previously by myself and others, many of us already use 1Password for bookmarks. So maybe it's helpful to talk about this in terms of specific functionality that you'd like us to add. I hadn't thought about it before, but it might help you and others to add a "bookmark" tag to items, so that you can easily find them...or use tags themselves as a bookmarking interface. I use them for other things already, so I'm not sure I'd go that route. But I know a lot of people don't use tags at all, and maybe that would help them. For example, I have a tag for "bills" which could almost be thought of as a bookmark list for things I have to pay each month. So I think we might be getting hung up on the term "bookmarks". I don't think that most people use 1Password for that (or would pay for the privilege if that's all it did), so we don't want to optimize for that. But I bet there are things we could add to the app that would make it more useful for you to store and use "bookmarks" which would benefit other use cases as well. :)

flomeh

@brenty Thanks for the reply. I think the first and more important thing for me would be to be able to add a "bookmark" as we're calling them, on the fly via the web browser. As it currently stands, I cannot do that without opening up 1Password standalone. I'd like to be able to hit (Command + N) when 1P mini is open and simply add the bare minimum (a link).

Yes, I do use tags extensively and have been tagging as bookmarks; otherwise I'd have to way to purge them if necessary.

AGAlumB

@flomeh: That's a good point. Since 1Password is designed first and foremost for login filling, we do have some things in place to prevent "false positives": it can be very annoying to be prompted to save a login when you're doing a web search, for example. So I can see how that would conflict with what you're trying to do. I'm not certain that this in particular is a change we'll make since the vast majority of people use 1Password very differently on a day-to-day basis, but you raise some good points and it's certainly something we can consider.

flomeh

@brenty Actually, I'm not referring to auto prompting. I'm simply referring to a manual invoking of "Save New Login" from 1Password mini. The false positives would not be a concern here. Here's the use case:

User visits interesting website they'd like to save for later. They invoke 1P mini and then "Save New Login" (or whatever you guys choose to call it in the future). Whether or not the site has login capabilities is irrelevant. It would simply detect whether or not there is a form filled out. If there is; save the credentials. If there isn't; you could do one of two things:

1. Prompt for tagging and save the site with just the URL, or
2. Prompt for tagging and manual username/password entry and save site.

You may have more relevant metrics to say otherwise; but my gut is telling me that there are many others out there silently waiting for this feature. Just a hunch, but with the current state of bookmarks (being the disaster that they are) I wouldn't be surprised at all; and I absolutely see potential here for Agilebits with low-risk ROI. Just doing my part!

AGAlumB

Actually, I'm not referring to auto prompting. I'm simply referring to a manual invoking of "Save New Login" from 1Password mini. The false positives would not be a concern here.

@flomeh: Well, I appreciate that it isn't a concern for you, but for others it could be. ;)

Here's the use case: User visits interesting website they'd like to save for later. They invoke 1P mini and then "Save New Login" (or whatever you guys choose to call it in the future). Whether or not the site has login capabilities is irrelevant. It would simply detect whether or not there is a form filled out. If there is; save the credentials. If there isn't; you could do one of two things: Prompt for tagging and save the site with just the URL, or Prompt for tagging and manual username/password entry and save site. You may have more relevant metrics to say otherwise; but my gut is telling me that there are many others out there silently waiting for this feature. Just a hunch, but with the current state of bookmarks (being the disaster that they are) I wouldn't be surprised at all; and I absolutely see potential here for Agilebits with low-risk ROI. Just doing my part!

We don't have metrics on this sort of thing since 1Password is designed foremost with privacy and security in mind. So we rely on feedback from users for the stuff our gut doesn't tell us to do on its own. Certainly I can see how this could be useful to you and others, but I can count on one hand the number of people who have asked for something like this over the years. So the concern for me is not just the work that would need to go into developing and testing to get something like this out the door (you're right, it could potentially be minimal), but also confusion and support burden it could cause since this is different to how everyone is used to 1Password working. And ultimately it would take more work than one might think on the surface, since we've been explicitly designing 1Password to not allow for saving in non-login situations for so long. It's definitely something we can consider changing in a future version, but it's likely that we won't do that while there are much more popular requests which will therefore benefit a much greater number of people if we work on those things instead. I'm sorry I don't have better news for you now, but it's possible that this could bubble up in the future at least if it makes sense for 1Password to serve this function. Only time will tell. Cheers! :)

flomeh

@brenty Fair enough. I appreciate the discourse!

AGAlumB

Likewise, without feedback like this we'd have to rely on guesswork. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your thoughts and suggestions! :chuffed: