Cleaning up passwords - issues and any advice appreciated

twynne

I'm currently trying to work through all old/weak passwords, archiving where accounts no longer exist, changing passwords otherwise. I'm finding the process using 1P extremely painful.

The process I'm following is to use the search criteria where password = (old/weak password) and Title begins with (letter) and working through A-Z. This minimises the number of results so I'm not scrolling through hundreds of items.

Unfortunately I'm finding almost every time I take action on an entry, 1P resets to showing the full list of all items even though my search criteria is still active at the top. I have to click back into the search criteria and hit enter to again filter the list.

Am I missing a trick here?

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1Password Version: 6.8.6 MAS
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: 10.13.4
Sync Type: 1Password

Lars

@twynne

I'm finding the process using 1P extremely painful.

That's not something we ever want to hear! :(

Just to clarify, are you using 1Password for Mac's Security Audit feature to show you all of the weak or duplicate passwords? Or are you attempting this search on your own, from the search bar?

twynne

Hi Lars

Driven by your article here:

https://twitter.com/1Password/status/966811666263388160

... I'm doing this manually as it's not yet integrated anyway. I used the instructions there to identify a password I used to use that is still active on a number of websites. The plan was to then search 1P on my Mac for those accounts using that password and clean them up.

So yes, I'm doing this search on my own from the search bar, using the 'Show search options' and setting values as I've specified above.

Lars

@twynne - I'd suggest trying the Security Audit feature first, as that separates things out for you automatically. It doesn't directly interface with Troy's tool -- because that's only available at the web portal for 1password.com accounts, currently - but it will show you both duplicate passwords and passwords it considers weak.

twynne

That doesn't really work I'm afraid as the password I'm addressing isn't 'weak' - it was just used on multiple sites and has been stolen so is in the public domain.

I can't see why the existing search function shouldn't work. The interface seems completely broken in this respect. Why offer search options and then ignore them when interacting with the search results. It's extremely frustrating.

Lars

@twynne

...the password I'm addressing isn't 'weak' - it was just used on multiple sites and has been stolen so is in the public domain.

That would be why I mentioned both the Weak Passwords function and the Duplicate Passwords function of 1Password for Mac's Security Audit.

If you've used the same password on multiple sites, it should show up in the "Duplicate Passwords" section specifically, which you may find easier to use. I'm trying to get you the quickest and most-comprehensive solution to the problem you're facing, which you mentioned was a clean-up of your older passwords that might be be weak or duplicated.

You're not "missing a trick" regarding the advanced search functions, but you (presumably) are changing this old/weak password each time you find it. That means the item in question - which is still the selected/highlighted item - no longer meets your search criteria since you changed the password. Therefore, 1Password cannot show you both the item you selected AND your search results, since the item you selected (which was the last action taken) no longer meets those search criteria.

I'm sorry you find the process of having to return to the search field and press Enter again extremely painful.

twynne

I still think you're missing my point. I don't expect the item I've updated to remain in search results, I expect the OTHER search results to remain visible AFTER I've updated one item in the results. The search results don't remain there, they reset to show ALL items every time I update an item. So it's useless as a means of working through a set of results to update them as it effectively keeps losing my place. I have to click into the search fields, hit enter, remember where I was, scroll back there and start again. Repeat this 3-400 times and you'll see why it's frustrating.

It's bad UI design. if an application gives the option to enter/save search criteria, the expected behaviour is that the search results remain visible until the search criteria is cleared. It's either a bug, or it's poor design.

Lars

@twynne

I expect the OTHER search results to remain visible AFTER I've updated one item in the results.

That's perhaps where your expectations differ from the design. 1Password doesn't know why you chose the specific criteria you chose, it just knows that after you chose them, you selected a single item and performed an action on that item. 1Password's focus remains on the selected item, not on the prior action of a search. Because the acted-upon item no longer fits the search criteria, the most-recently selected item retains the focus, not the previous action of choosing search criteria.

Thanks for making your wishes on refinements for our search process known; I’ll pass it along to our developers. We’re always appreciative of feedback from the user community regarding what they'd like to see in future versions of 1Password.

ref: WCL-96386-913

twynne

Hi Lars,

I DO appreciate your attempt to help, and apologies if my frustration bled through yesterday. I do think the 'search' behaviour is a bit inconsistent though, in particular as the search fields are still visible and my search values still there so it doesn't make sense to me that the search results reset (to all items) after interacting with one of them.

To provide some context, I've been a 1P user (across all platforms) for many years now. The downside of this is that every logon to every website has accumulated and I've now decided it's time for a clear out (spurred on my the recent blog post).

Looking at it another way, there's a bit of a missed opportunity in 1P in this regard. It would be really useful, for example, to have a 'clean up' view over the data which shows logins needing attention and allows the user to work through them systematically with options to change password, archive, or move to trash. The weak/duplicate passwords views go some way on this, but there are some issues:

• 'Weak' could use the ability for the user to specify what constitutes weak.
• 'Duplicate' kinda works, in that it includes one of the passwords that started me down this path, but when you get to the last instance of a duplicate password the login then disappears (as it's no longer a duplicate). The last item still needs changing, so the user has to remember what login it was and go find it, action, etc.

Just feels like this could all be rolled together into something really useful to take action on those items.

Thanks for listening.

Lars

@twynne - Thanks. I see you've opened this identical issue via email as well with one of my colleagues. To avoid duplication of effort and longer support wait times for everyone including you, let's keep the issue going in just one place at a time - via email.