How to get the best quality Icons?

I am a new subscriber to 1Password, and am currently setting up the various Logins, Identities, etc. I must first say I have found the software to be very intuitive, and I am very happy with my decision to subscribe.

As part of the setting up process, I am trying to ensure the icons associated with my entries are of the best possible quality. When I create a new Login and then save, many times, after a short delay, an icon is added automatically. Initially I assumed this was coming from the website to which the Login refers, but now I understand it is instead coming from a database of high resolution Smart Icons maintained by 1Password.

In some cases, no icon is added automatically. I assume this is because there is no relevant icon in the Smart Icon database. In such cases I have been using a search engine to find suitable high resolution icons. and have added these manually. Sometimes I have used Microsoft Paint as an intermediate step. This is also what I have been doing with regards to icons in the Identities, Secure Notes and Bank Accounts Categories. As there is no web site address in these entries it is impossible for a Smart Icon to be automatically added. Using a search engine to find these icons is easy to do, but I was wondering if this is the best way to add missing icons? Perhaps there is a better way?

Regarding the resolution of icons, I read that the Smart Icons are typically 512x512. I have tried to find similar resolution icons for those I have been adding manually. Without wishing to get technical, are any icon resolutions downscaled at any stage? I am asking this because in some cases it is difficult to find icons of 512x512 or greater and if they are downscaled when I add and save them, then there is no point in searching for high resolution icons. Also, I notice that if I right click on an icon and select "save to disk", the icon is saved at 64x64.

Many thanks in advance for any help or advice.


1Password Version: 7.3.712
Extension Version: n/a
OS Version: Windows 10
Sync Type: n/a

Comments

  • This is really an individual choice, @teejaydee. Personally, I've never been fussed about everything having an icon so if my item has a rich icon, great. If not, I leave it be. I can't say I'm familiar with where to find these, but most websites do have a favicon set and I've heard a number of customers recommend these when rich icons aren't available. As for resolution 512x512 is what we aim for, but icons at that resolution aren't always available so sometimes we end up with something less pretty. Ultimately, what's going to be enough will vary by person and system. If it looks good to you, it's probably adequate. I wouldn't stress too much. This is all for you, after all. It makes your vault a bit prettier so if you're happy with it, then I'd say that's plenty good enough. :chuffed:

  • teejaydee
    teejaydee
    Community Member

    Many thanks @bundtkate for your reply. It's just that I am trying to get the whole 1Password set up process done in an optimum way, and for me that includes having the sharpest icons that I can find. You're quite right though in pointing out that it's not worth getting stressed over. In fact once I have loaded any icons manually in to 1Password I can't discern any difference between a 512x512 one and, say, a 256x256 one, especially when I view them on my iPhone!

  • Exactly, @teejaydee. I think on a fancy 4k display that might jump out at you, but depending on your setup it'll be far less noticeable. I have a 1440p ultrawide monitor myself so I will notice some differences in icons on occasion, but I have to look pretty close most of the time because my display just isn't that high res to begin with. Trust your eyes, I say. If it looks pretty to you, it's probably a-okay. :chuffed:

  • DenalB
    DenalB
    Community Member

    I'm just wondering why there are a lot of icons which are not shown or detected in 1PW. I tried to add some logins and although there is a favicon shown in the browser 1PW doesn't or it shows a different icon.

    Here are some examples:

    Why there is such a behavior?

  • Hi @DenalB,

    In 1Password 7, we don't fall back to the site's favicon like we used to in older versions as they often don't have high quality icons to use.

    All Rich Icons come from our image service, which we manually add icons for the top 1000 requests, which we then do the next 1000. This means the less common sites won't have a Rich Icon for a while.

    You can work around some of the sites by adding a custom icon yourself if you want.

  • DenalB
    DenalB
    Community Member

    Hi @MikeT ,

    as they often don't have high quality icons to use

    But a low quality icon is better than no icon, isn't it? As you can see in my screenshot for "Woltlab" it doesn't seem to be a high quality rich icon.

    Is it possible for us as customers to help filling your image service?

  • Hi @DenalB,

    But a low quality icon is better than no icon, isn't it?

    Not always. They become much worse when you scale it up with high DPI monitors, especially on mobile devices and macOS with 2x/3x scaling factor. We don't use that on Windows right now due to a limitation but we do plan to address that and 2x the low quality icon is 2x worse.

    On macOS, we actually generate a randomized colorful monograms instead of the boring generic icon we have in the Windows app. We do plan to bring that to Windows in a future update.

    There are other reasons for not wanting to use favicons; we'd have to manually visit every site you have in your 1Password database to pull the favicon, which can be problematic and not desirable.

    Is it possible for us as customers to help filling your image service?

    In terms of simply filling in a form with icons to automate the process, no. However, you can make requests to us and we'll see what we can do to expedite it manually. You can either let me know your top five sites here (keep in mind this is a public forum) to get a Rich Icon sooner or you can email us at support+forums@1Password.com with your list. If you do email us, please include the link to this thread and your forum username, so I can quickly find it and make sure it goes to the right team.

    In terms of this overall, this is definitely an area we can improve a lot for sure.

  • DenalB
    DenalB
    Community Member

    Hi @MikeT ,
    Thanks a lot for the explanation. Now it sounds a lot better for me and I can understand the behavior much better. :+1:

  • You're welcome!

  • DenalB
    DenalB
    Community Member
    edited February 2020

    Hey @MikeT , it's me again. I just imported all of my logins into 1Password and wonder why there are icons shown in the Windows Desktop App and why the same entries don't have an icon in iOS app. All these icons came automatically from 1Password.

    But for entries which I modified by myself and gave them new icons in the Windows Desktop App there are also icons in the iOS app shown.

    Like I wrote I gave them new icons. Some of these entries already had icons but most of them were outdated. So I decided to change all icons and that's what happened.

    Why there is such a behavior? Are all icons coming from 1Password in low quality so that they are not shown in the iOS app?

  • Hey there @DenalB

    The icons (or lack thereof) within 1Password on iOS is actually a current bug that our development folks have been made aware of, and will be something we are addressing rather quickly. 😊

  • DenalB
    DenalB
    Community Member

    Hi @Blake! Thanks a lot.

    Could you or someone else please be so kind and delete my screenshots in the last post? I forgot to delete some of my private information. Thanks in advance.

  • ag_ana
    ag_ana
    1Password Alumni

    @DenalB:

    Done :+1:

  • DenalB
    DenalB
    Community Member

    Thx @ag_ana ! πŸ‘

  • Greg
    Greg
    1Password Alumni

    On behalf of Ana you are very welcome @DenalB! :+1:

    Feel free to raise any questions, we are always ready to help.

    Cheers,
    Greg

  • DenalB
    DenalB
    Community Member

    πŸ‘

  • ag_ana
    ag_ana
    1Password Alumni

    :)

  • DenalB
    DenalB
    Community Member

    Thanks for the iOS update 7.4.6. All icons are shown correctly now. πŸ‘

  • Greg
    Greg
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @DenalB,

    Great news! I am glad to hear that you are enjoying the latest iOS update. :) We are always ready to help. :+1:

    Cheers,
    Greg

  • DenalB
    DenalB
    Community Member

    Thanks @Greg ! πŸ‘

  • It's no trouble at all! We're happy to help. :chuffed: :+1:

  • DenalB
    DenalB
    Community Member

    Sorry for coming back here in this topic...

    Actually it's the third or fourth time for me to start with 1Password. In the last years I used a lot of password managers and yes, I think that 1Password is exactly the piece of software I want to deal my passwords, logins, security notes, licenses with. But the biggest problem for me is the handling of the icons given to entries / logins by your database.

    2 weeks ago I imported all of my data into 1Password. Since then, I'm spending a lot of time to get the icons for all of my logins and other stuff. Yes, sometimes there are icons coming from your database but most of my entries don't get an icon or the icons are very blurry as you can see on my screenshots. All of these icons are coming from 1Password.

    This is why I can not understand why you changed how 1Password handles these icons since version 7. :(

    All Rich Icons come from our image service, which we manually add icons for the top 1000 requests, which we then do the next 1000.

    Is there still someone who adds new icons to your image service or changes them when there are newer icons available? When I started with 1Password for the first time some month ago there were the same icons used from 1Password as today.

    There are other reasons for not wanting to use favicons; we'd have to manually visit every site you have in your 1Password database to pull the favicon, which can be problematic and not desirable.

    There is already a setting for using rich icons for the entries. Yes, I could disable it to have no icons but that looks a little "grey".

    Why not change this setting to "Use favicons from websites" and add an information like "Please be aware that 1Password has to visit every website to get the favicon and this could be a bit risky!"? So every customer can decide for himself / herself if he / she wants 1Password to visit every website.

    As I wrote I used many password managers in the past. And most of them got the icons directly from the belonging website. I can't remember of a software that didn't use the favicons. Only 1Password does... For me, it was one of the reasons to leave 1Password behind. Actually I try to live with this, but it's hard.

    As for resolution 512x512 is what we aim for, but icons at that resolution aren't always available so sometimes we end up with something less pretty.

    Searching for images with a size of 512x512 or bigger currently takes a lot of time for me. From imported more than 400 entries there are still 300 left. I have to check every entry and add or change the icon manually. There are only some icons I want to use coming from the 1Password image service.

    Please think about your decision regarding handling the icons for logins! It would be great if 1Password uses the favicons for the entries.

    Currently, there are no negative points about 1Password. The only bad thing for me are the icons. ;)

  • @DenalB

    We intentionally choose to not use favicons for a few different reasons, the biggest one being that there really are some absolutely awful and abundant default 16x16 favicons that are far more embarrassing than using our spiffy-looking generic one.

    With that being said, there are some potential privacy concerns where we would have to download your favicons for various sites (if we did such a thing) β€” some of which a user might not want us to know they were using. We don’t keep track of that, obviously…but we could, if we’re downloading those icons, and that could be considered a privacy issue where the only answer is β€œtrust us, we don’t.”

    We do not have any plans to implement favicons at any point in the future. If you find that a Rich Icon needs to be updated, please send us an email to support@1password.com containing the public website URL of the item in which the Rich Icon is meant for, and a high-quality 512x512 image that officially represents its URL.

  • DenalB
    DenalB
    Community Member

    @Blake

    Thanks for explaining again. :+1:

    If you find that a Rich Icon needs to be updated, please send us an email to support@1password.com containing the public website URL of the item in which the Rich Icon is meant for, and a high-quality 512x512 image that officially represents its URL.

    Actually I have more than 200 icons collected for my logins and other entries. ;)

  • Send'em our way, as well as the appropriate 512x512 image and we will get them setup! πŸ’™

  • DenalB
    DenalB
    Community Member

    Thanks a lot. πŸ˜‰

  • You're super welcome! I'm glad we can help! 😊

This discussion has been closed.