Which content is searchable?

I observe that I cannot find Logins by searching for words contained within their Notes field, and I can only find Secure Notes by searching for the first few words of the content. This makes it very difficult to find my entries.

I am using 1Password X 1.19.1 on Firefox on Linux.

... I have just discovered that in iOS the same search terms yield more results. Is there any way I can get the full search results on my computer?


1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: 1.19.1
OS Version: Pop!OS 20.04 LTS
_Sync Type:
Not Provided
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Comments

  • kaitlyn
    kaitlyn
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @lorrin! 👋

    Searching Secure Notes contents as well as the notes within Logins would require us to decrypt every item in 1Password X, which we don't currently do. Instead, we decrypt the item when it's selected in the 1Password X pop-up. I'm happy to pass along your feedback to my team, though, as I've seen this requested a couple times in the past. 1Password X is currently the only option on Linux, so there isn't a way to search notes contents for you at the moment. What you can try in the meantime is tagging items, since tags will appear in search. I'm not sure what exactly you're looking for by searching the contents of notes, but I figured that may help as a workaround for now.

    Let me know if you have any other questions!

    ref: dev/core/core#615

  • lorrin
    lorrin
    Community Member

    Thanks for the reply, Kaitlyn. That is frustrating; I hope you can improve the Linux experience. I have two different use cases.

    The first is logins where the notes field provide additional clarification or context. E.g. a login for a brokerage might have a note saying that's where the 401k from a previous job is held. I could tag it with "401k" and with "retirement" and with the previous employer's name, etc. But that's a lot of up front work to do across many entries in preparation for possible forgetfulness in the future.

    The other use case is that my previous password solution were a handful of encrypted text files. My frequently-used logins are now proper 1Password entries, but decades of old ones are in a few free-form Secure Notes. In this case, I actually don't need to search across all 1Password content. It would be fine if I could open the secure note and search within it. But there's no way to do that that I can find. Maybe this would be an easy feature to add, since it fits within the current model of only decrypting the active item.

  • kaitlyn
    kaitlyn
    1Password Alumni

    @lorrin – While I can't share our plans for the future, I think you'd be delighted to hear about some of the things we're working on. Stay tuned for that! :chuffed:

    I really appreciate you sharing your use cases with me. It's incredibly helpful to understand the why behind a feature request. I've passed the request along to my team. We'll keep it in mind when building future versions of 1Password X.

  • limex
    limex
    Community Member

    +1 from me. I have the same issue. And maybe hundreds of (currently) silent users. ;)

  • kaitlyn
    kaitlyn
    1Password Alumni

    Thanks for joining the conversation, @limex! I've added you as an affected user to the existing issue I filed.

    ref: dev/core/core#615

  • sbaumgarten
    sbaumgarten
    Community Member

    I'd love to have this option as well, even if it's not the default. Similar to lorrin and limex, I use the notes for additional context and to help search for the right login, e.g., I have "HSA" in the notes field for the connectyourcare.com website that manages my flex spending. (For what it's worth, LastPass supports this functionality in its extension. Having said that, 1Password is superior in pretty much every other way.)

  • ag_ana
    ag_ana
    1Password Alumni

    Thank you for sharing your thoughts too @sbaumgarten :+1: :)

  • flashpaz
    flashpaz
    Community Member

    I would like to add my voice to this issue.

    I have recently migrated from another password manager and the inability to search notes is a major pain point which will probably send the whole family back to square one (ie the other password manager).

    I'm mostly talking semi-sensitive stuff like serial numbers / license keys stored centrally in a single note. I would perfectly accept that this information gets decrypted in memory together with the Vault and I can play with the inactivity lock to protect that with the right level of security. I also understand that people would like to avoid that so it could be optional.

    Also, the behavior seems to be slightly different from what you describe. Even if I cannot search in imported notes, it seems I can search in newly created ones, both in the Chrome extension (v1.21.0) and in 1Password mini (7.6.780 on Windows 10).

    Thanks for considering this and congrats for the great app otherwise.

  • ag_yaron
    ag_yaron
    1Password Alumni

    Hey @flashpaz ,
    Thanks for adding your thoughts and feedback here.

    When you search in the 1Password extension in your browser, it only searches major fields (Titles, URLs, names of items, tags etc). However, when you search in the 1Password desktop app it will search everywhere, so that would be your go-to when trying to find something that you don't quite remember its exact name. The desktop app will make your life (and your family's) easier when needing to find stuff.

    Other than that, the suggestions in this thread are great as well for a better workflow. Using tags is awesome, and separating all the information you have in a single note to multiple items would really help improve your experience. You can create software license items in 1Password, as well as social security numbers, drivers licenses etc. No need to keep all that information in a single note, and it will make finding them a lot easier, especially with proper naming and tags :)

    Hopefully you'll find this information useful in the meantime.

  • bradbulger
    bradbulger
    Community Member

    "However, when you search in the 1Password desktop app it will search everywhere,"

    Is that only for Windows? I just tried this in the OS X app and it does not search words in secure notes.

  • ag_yaron
    ag_yaron
    1Password Alumni

    Hey @bradbulger ,

    The desktop app's search will definitely find anything and everything in any field of an item. When you search, if it shows no results, there should be a "Expand search to all fields" button in the search results. Clicking on it will search literally everywhere.

This discussion has been closed.