the problem with replacing the trash with archive

odysseus
odysseus
Community Member

Archive replaces Trash in your sidebar, and serves as the new home for those items you need to store long term without having them appear in the browser as filling suggestions. If you’ve already been using Trash to store items like this, then you’ll find those items in your Archive.

Why not have both an "archive" and a "trash", and educate customers properly about their respective roles?

Simply replacing "trash" with "archive" seems ill-considered. Here's why. For a long time, I've used a special vault called "Old" as my archive for passwords that I wanted to keep around. When I delete something, I want it to go into the trash, not the archive. But perhaps I don't want it to disappear immediately (which is what happens now with delete), while at the same time I don't want to archive it? This new system won't allow for this.

Please restore the trash!


1Password Version: 7.8.3
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: 11.3.1
Sync Type: 1Password

«1

Comments

  • roustem
    edited May 2021

    We suggested using a special vault for the archived items in the past.

    Unfortunately, it does not work well today when we all have multiple vaults and many of them are shared within the family or team. Moving items between vaults technically creates a copy of the item and deletes the old one, along with its history and permissions. The new Archive features works much better in the age of many vaults.

    With this change we are also trying to solve another issue that haunted us for years. In the past, the users would empty the Trash and believe that the data was deleted while it was still available under Recently Deleted on 1Password.com. It was awkward and to really get rid of the data, you would have to delete item, then empty the trash, then go to Recently Deleted and click Destroy. It is simpler now. We hope to make the "Recently Deleted" view to be available in 1Password apps later.

  • sjn_ns
    sjn_ns
    Community Member

    I completely agree with odysseus. I suspect many of us were in the habit of maintaining our own Archive vault (that happily coexists along with multiple other vaults...) as a way to store older items that might (or might not) need to be revisited. By simply excluding that vault from searches, we could control exactly how it behaved, while always being fully aware of it as an actual vault.

    Now, by muddling 'Trash' and 'Archive', you've made things much more confusing, much less clear, and much more prone to possible user errors.

    I strongly urge you to backtrack on this ill-advised change, and restore sensible functionality again.

  • DenalB
    DenalB
    Community Member

    Hey @roustem !

    We hope to make the "Recently Deleted" view to be available in 1Password apps later.

    This would be very helpful. Actually there is no "Archive" in the Windows desktop app. I only have this "Archive" on 1Password.com and in the iOS app.

    Also, it would be great to archive linked items too when sending an item into the archive. Now I have to archive an old software license entry and afterwards I have to archive the attachments linked to this software license entry. But I think that this is another problem (https://1password.community/discussion/115460/attachments). ;)

  • odysseus
    odysseus
    Community Member
    edited May 2021

    @Roustem The problem is that you're justifying a change based on edge cases that reveal some major limitations of the vault system as it was designed long ago: as @DenalB points out, moving items between vaults loses attachments and not only history and permissions. This begs the question: why does moving items between vaults have to be a copy & delete operation? Why can't an item can't simply be shared between vaults? This is just insane!

    But I digress. Again, this change has imposed one of two choices on the user: either they have to archive an item, or it must be deleted immediately. I think there's an analogy with email: who would accept a system where you either had to archive an email message or delete it immediately and never have it return?

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    Community Member

    My Windows desktop app doesn't have the Archive and still shows Trash. However, the contents of Archive on 1password.com match the contents of Trash on the desktop app. So hopefully the two will soon be named the same.

    If I understand correctly, deleted items will go to View Recently Deleted. So View Recently Deleted is essentially the new Trash. Is there a longer term plan to rename View Recently Deleted to Trash once all the apps have the Archive?

  • Apologies about the Windows app. The update will be available soon, it is in QA now.

    Yes, the Recently Deleted is essentially the new Trash. We might rename it later but we didn't want to confuse things even more at this point.

  • DenalB
    DenalB
    Community Member

    Thanks @roustem ! Looking forward to the new release of the Windows desktop app. :+1:

  • odysseus
    odysseus
    Community Member

    @roustem The other troubling aspect of this change is that the user base does not appear to have been consulted. It would have been helpful to propose more than one scenario.

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    Community Member
    edited May 2021

    @roustem Thanks for the follow up. I think it makes sense to separate the archive and trash functions. Hiding the archive behind the trash never made sense to me. Permanently deleting items was a multi-step process usually starting with Move to Trash in the desktop app and finishing with Destroy in the archive on 1password.com. This is more flexible and easier to understand, but I suspect there will me some heated discussion, especailly from those who have created their own archiving procedures.

  • wj1pfan
    wj1pfan
    Community Member

    What's that smell? Oh, it's the Archive!

    Of course, that's just my opinion, but I can't believe you guys would foist such a huge workflow change on your entire customer base so suddenly.

    I have never been one to delete anything directly (at least, not since the days of MS-DOS and the Apple II) because sometimes it's better to think it over.

    I never used the Trash as an archive, because I could simply edit an item and choose "Never suggest in browser" in the event that I was that much "on the fence" about an item's status. But I would not be opposed to the co-existence of an Archive alongside the Trash, perhaps with a simple configurable preference for keyboard shortcuts so that everyone can be happy.

    But now, if I want to do something that used to be simple (like empty the Trash), I have to:

    1. Click Archive.
    2. Click in the blank space in the Archive list because merely clicking Archive isn't enough.
    3. Issue Select All.
    4. Right click the items (because the Delete or Backspace keys don't work anymore)
    5. Choose Delete.
    6. Confirm my choice (Hey, the keyboard works again!)

    SO many usability problems!

    With the Trash, I used to simply:

    1. Right-click the Trash. (You took away the Empty Trash keyboard shortcut years ago, but I've long since gotten over that)
    2. Choose Empty Trash.
    3. Confirm my choice.

    I don't see how doubling the number of steps for a simple task is a good thing. Maybe it's time to look for a new password manager?

  • skatch
    skatch
    Community Member
    edited May 2021

    Interesting to see the new archive feature, and read the blog post explaining the reasoning behind it. As someone who has long had an "Archive" vault to store dead/expired/unused items, I should be right in the target audience for this. However, after a bit of testing I'm not loving the current implementation. Some feedback in case it's helpful for the team:

    • There's no way to migrate my existing "Archive" vault to the new built-in feature.

      • If I move my existing "Archive" vault items to my primary vault, I'll lose track of which items need to subsequently be moved into the archive.
      • If I archive the items in my "Archive" vault, I can't move them. The "move" action is disabled for items in the archive. The simplest thing would be to allow moving from the archive in one vault to the archive in another.
    • It's nice that deleted items can be recovered from the online portal. But (1) it's not discoverable, and (2) it's way more cumbersome to go there. I hope a "recently deleted" view in the app is on the roadmap.

      • Sidenote: I'm a big fan of having a "recently deleted" view instead of a trash. I always forgot to empty the trash, so items would accumulate over years, and when I periodically remembered I'd hesitate to empty it because there was so much stuff in there. Being able to recover recent items without the overhead of emptying the trash is 👍
    • IMO the keyboard shortcuts for archive and delete should change. Currently there's no keyboard shortcut for delete, and both delete and cmd+delete = archive, which feels like pretending that archive is a substitute for deleting. It's not. They're two very different things, with completely different uses. (I often delete items in 1Password, like when I end up using the password generator multiple times to create/update a login on a site. I never want to archive all the intermediate passwords that weren't accepted.) Make it so that e.g. delete = delete, and something like cmd+shift+a = archive. Or delete = archive, and cmd+delete = delete.

    And one last thing, which I'm separating out as I'm not sure how important this actually is in practice.

    • One advantage of using a vault as an archive is that you retain the ability to browse by category. I have a feeling I won't miss this, as my main use for the archive is occasionally looking up old passport or credit card details, which I can use the search field for. But it'll be interesting to see how the flat list of all items plays out in the long run, given my archive will only grow over time.

    1Password Version: 7.8.3
    Extension Version: Not Provided
    OS Version: 11.3.1
    Sync Type: 1Password account

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    Community Member
    edited May 2021

    @wj1pfan For me its a positive move. It didn't make sense to hide the Archive behind the Trash. At least now we can choose whether to Archive or Delete. Previously I couldn't selectively delete items from Trash, I had to either empty Trash or leave all items in Trash. If I wanted to permanently delete an item from the desktop app, I had to:
    1. Click on item
    2. Select Move to Trash
    3. Empty Trash moving all items in Trash to Archived items
    4. Login to 1password.com
    5. Find the right vault
    6. Click on Trash
    7. Click on view Archived items
    8. Click on Destroy next to item.
    However I feel your pain. There will be a lot of people who have developed workflows around the old scheme. For example, people with their own archive vaults will need to move items to another vault before archiving them or else they will lose all the items when they delete the old archive vault.

  • cyberfunkr
    cyberfunkr
    Community Member

    Here is the issue I'm having...

    Since moving from vault to vault is a "copy & delete" as opposed to an actual migration, when I move something from Private to its new vault, I end up with TWO records of the same thing. The one record that exists in the correct vault, and one that exists in Archive. Now I need to go into the Archive to delete the duplicate.

    As a recent convert from another manager to 1Password, I have literally 700 passwords that I need to go through and re-tag and move into vaults. The fact that my Archive vault is going to now house things I really want Archived AND things that were put in their proper place makes the Archive too confusing. I look through the Archive to phase things out and keep running across current passwords and it takes effort to go "Is this the original that was moved, or did the system screw up and now an important password is Archived?"

    So take aways are:
    1. Let the user manage how to use the Archive vault (use your built-in version or create their own)
    2. If you have to do a "copy & delete" to move between vaults, then really put the original in the Recently Deleted section so things aren't duplicated.

  • rodrigow
    rodrigow
    Community Member

    I do also agree with odysseus and with wj1pfan too. I would also like to add that using the "Delete" button to "Archive" is counter-intuitive and creates lots of manual step for a simple action to delete an item. What about let the User decide what the "Delete" shortcut does?

  • wkleem
    wkleem
    Community Member
    edited May 2021

    Is this just a change for the sake of change? Wouldn't it have been better to keep the old Trash name which had been around for the life of 1Password, 15 years already?

    Adding an Archive vault and keeping Trash may have been better and less confusing? Imagine changing all your support documents to Archive, from Trash!

    Direct Delete is the more useful feature in my opinion.

    These are my thoughts.


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

  • skatch
    skatch
    Community Member

    @roustem it's helpful to know more context around this change. The long term goal of having an "Archive" as well as "Recently Deleted" will be a nice improvement. And I agree that especially with shared vaults, having an archive per vault works much better than having a separate Archive vault.

    But I find this interim step of renaming Trash to Archive, without fully adjusting the rest of the product's behavior, to be confusing.

    I buried the lede in my earlier comment:

    [This] feels like pretending that archive is a substitute for deleting. It's not. They're two very different things, with completely different uses.

    Aside from the items I listed in my earlier comment:

    • I wouldn't have realized that moving an item to a different vault also moves the original into the Archive (thanks @cyberfunkr). I hope that changes soon as it seems like holdover behavior from when there was a Trash.
    • As an existing user with items already in the Trash, it was confusing to find Trash (items I want deleted) turn into Archive (items that should be kept). Because I read release notes, I went in and erased all my old Trash items so that I can use the Archive as intended in the future. But my parents won't think to do this. If they archive things in the future, they'll end up with a bunch of legitimately archived items mixed in with old trashed items.

    In terms of adding Archive functionality, I would have expected Trash to evolve into "Recently Deleted", and Archive to be a new thing altogether. I can guess why it wasn't done this way (Trash already exists everywhere, Recently Deleted already exists online, you just need to modify the former and make the latter available in the apps). But it's an odd migration for existing users.

    I hope some of the current issues can be ironed out quickly, and that the "Recently Deleted" view makes its way into the apps sooner than later.

  • voichould
    voichould
    Community Member
    edited May 2021

    We need access to "Recently Deleted" on all apps. Items that I have previously deleted now are in the Archive? Why is it in Archive if I deleted? Is it a zombie now? And now I need to go and review everything on my Archive to check if I really deleted... very strange experience

  • wkleem
    wkleem
    Community Member

    How would the new Archive work with 1Password Standalone Apps? Many people won't go into subscription and 1Password still offers 1Password 7 Standalone licenses for Mac and Windows? Can I assume Archive is still called Trash on 1Password Standalone?

  • deangles
    deangles
    Community Member
    edited May 2021

    So, I've been holding off on 1Password updates because of the issues with the "new Safari experience" and I do not care about Big Sur. Things worked without all the updates since v7.7 until today. Tried to empty trash and the only option was to choose check updates and install updates. So FORCED to update the app inspite of my paid subscription. However, the install and update did NOT relaunch as stated. Manually launch after the update; and yes, the trash is now named "archive" but the release notes does NOT state how to trash things. Manually look through menus to then find a trash option in the seventh "Item" menu. Select an "item" and then go to the Menu "Item" and select option "Trash", Why can't it be easier to trash items such as a keyboard shortcut or command + click on item? Or allow a side bar "Trash" AND "Archive" as the two are very different actions.
    I've been a long time 1Password user (1P v2.x) and as many recent reviewers post, it is more cumbersome to use especially for prospective new users. Why does 1Password assume that ppl want to archive items when many people really want to dump/trash items? So, 1Password folks can read minds…?


    1Password Version: forced to whatever you imposed
    Extension Version: Not Provided
    OS Version: who cares
    Sync Type: who cares

  • lebemail
    lebemail
    Community Member

    I agree with comments against the new Archive "feature" that replaces the Trash. I just wasted over an hour trying to understand why I could not find several passwords that I had just created for the same website, only to eventually discover that the older of these passwords were automatically moved to the Archive. Search previously also searched Trash, but now doesn't search Archive.

    Trash and Archive are two completely different concepts and should be treated as such. The current Archive is functionally overloaded by serving two different purposes and mangles long-standing user expectations. Please stop "enhancing" things that are not broken.

  • wkleem
    wkleem
    Community Member
    edited June 2021

    Please reassign the shortcut for Archive (Backspace/Delete) to Delete or assign a shortcut for Delete? On the Mac, Delete Immediately shortcut is Opt + Cmd + Delete.

    Thanks.

  • bgdnlp
    bgdnlp
    Community Member
    edited June 2021

    Adding my voice to the people saying that Delete and Archive are two different concepts and having Archive replace Trash was an unpleasant surprise. But I want to add another use case that I actually consider a SECURITY ISSUE, moving items in 1password for teams.

    I have a vault for my team. All kinds of items, including various root/admin accounts, the expensive kind that should be well protected. We're growing, so I have people joining my team who should not have access to all these items, so I'm creating a secondary vault "team-admins" and I move sensitive accounts there. Or so I thought. The items I moved are still there, where everyone can see them, just hidden so that I don't know about it. This is absolutely not hypothetical. Thankfully I discovered this early by chance.

    Please fix it. Please make move be move, don't change the meaning of the word. And when I delete an item I'd like it to behave the way I've come to expect for so many years, move to trash and auto delete after a time. And let me empty trash or force delete.

    And if the archive is actually per-vault, please reflect that in the UI. Either make it a subitem of the vault, or have a list of vaults under an "Archive" header. I do not want to see all the items from all family and work vaults piled up in the same place, I have them split by vault for a reason.

    EDIT: I discovered that it is possible to filter the archive by vault. Select the vault then close (?) the list of vaults from upper left corner, which will show Categories, Tags and Archive for that vault only.

  • Hi @bgdnlp

    I apologize for the delayed reply.

    Moving items between vaults has always been a "copy then trash" operation. This is something that has been on my mind for a long while too (I originally requested we change the behavior back in August of 2019). The difference now is that trash has been renamed to archive to better conform to the standards we're adopting moving forward. I would argue that is essentially a cosmetic difference.

    I have a vault for my team. All kinds of items, including various root/admin accounts, the expensive kind that should be well protected. We're growing, so I have people joining my team who should not have access to all these items, so I'm creating a secondary vault "team-admins" and I move sensitive accounts there

    In cases like this when moving a secret from a lower-security area to a higher-security area it would be best practice to change the secret. The only way to revoke someone's knowledge of a secret is to change it. Otherwise there is nothing saying that someone didn't capture/memorize/print/etc the secret while it was in the lower-security area and would retain it regardless of this behavior.

    While this is true of any secret and secret management system, we don't do a great job of highlighting this information. I'll take it back to the team to suggest that we attempt to find a way within the UI to convey this.

    Please fix it. Please make move be move, don't change the meaning of the word.

    The original logic here was that we were trying to prevent data loss in the event that something went wrong with the move operation. I agree with you though that moving an item shouldn't leave a copy in the origin vault. It appears we have plans to change this with 1Password 8. That would not supplant the advice above regarding changing secrets when moving between vaults that have differing levels of access.

    EDIT: I discovered that it is possible to filter the archive by vault. Select the vault then close (?) the list of vaults from upper left corner, which will show Categories, Tags and Archive for that vault only.

    Indeed; this is also how you would filter favorites, tags, and categories by vault.

    Ben

    ref: dev/core/core#6724

  • bgdnlp
    bgdnlp
    Community Member

    Hey @Ben , thanks for answering.

    Sorry to insist, but I want to clarify.

    there is nothing saying that someone didn't capture/memorize/print/etc the secret while it was in the lower-security area and would retain it regardless of this behavior.

    There is though. They hadn't joined the team yet, they didn't see the items while in the lower security area. That was the point, that's why I'd consider this behavior a security issue. As an admin, I assumed I was safe when I moved the items because no one else had access to them before the move, and I didn't expect them to still be there after. So I wouldn't need to change the secret. I was wrong.

    I understand the original logic, and this behavior, "move" meaning "copy", is ok-ish for single user installs, even for family in most cases. But it's not ok in this particular case, in teams, and maybe this scenario isn't that rare. What of the people who made the same assumptions as me, but didn't notice and now have their secrets exposed and don't even know it? I realize it sounds far-fetched, I don't mean to exaggerate the issue.

    this is also how you would filter favorites, tags, and categories by vault

    Yeap, it's just a bit unintuitive, that's all. It's not obvious where the filter is if you don't already know, no big deal.

    Thank you for acknowledging and for planning to change it in 1password 8.

  • There is though. They hadn't joined the team yet, they didn't see the items while in the lower security area. That was the point, that's why I'd consider this behavior a security issue. As an admin, I assumed I was safe when I moved the items because no one else had access to them before the move, and I didn't expect them to still be there after. So I wouldn't need to change the secret. I was wrong.

    Gotcha. Yes, in that case you are correct.

    I understand the original logic, and this behavior, "move" meaning "copy", is ok-ish for single user installs, even for family in most cases. But it's not ok in this particular case, in teams, and maybe this scenario isn't that rare. What of the people who made the same assumptions as me, but didn't notice and now have their secrets exposed and don't even know it? I realize it sounds far-fetched, I don't mean to exaggerate the issue.

    I agree. My fear is that even though it looks like this behavior will be different in 1Password 8, people will continue to try to use it as a means to revoke secrets, which it can't do. Admittedly I have no idea how we'd convey that, but I'd like to see us try.

    Yeap, it's just a bit unintuitive, that's all. It's not obvious where the filter is if you don't already know, no big deal.

    Understood; thanks. And I have shared this thread with our UX folks.

    Ben

  • skatch
    skatch
    Community Member

    At the risk of beating a dead horse... this archive behavior is continuing to be an annoyance. Two situations I've run into recently:

    • A couple weeks ago I moved 50+ logins to a new vault. Assumed they were gone from the original vault (and this is despite being aware of this behavior in theory from having just participated in this forum thread – in practice, making a copy of moved items in the archive is totally unexpected behavior). Fast forward to today when I found my archive cluttered with all these moved logins. I had to waste a bunch of time figuring out which archived items to delete.
    • I work in product development, and I generated some test passwords while testing some changes to a signup form. Once I finished testing I tried to delete them by hitting the [delete] key. After realizing this had archived them, I had to go and find the items a second time in the archive to delete them properly.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    Community Member

    @skatch I tried the Windows desktop app and the webapp. In both cases moving an item between vaults resulted in it being added to the Recently Deleted section of the original vault.
    The Windows desktop app, 1Password in the browser and the webapp all give the option of either archiving or deleting an item. Clicking Archive causes it to move to the Archive. Clicking Delete causes it to move to Recently Deleted.
    Which apps are you using? Are you using keyboard shortcuts to move or delete the items? Is it the shortcut mapping that's changed?

  • Hi @skatch

    I understand the behavior is undesirable, but to clarify: it isn't new. This same thing happened before the trash to archive transition. The only difference is that now the place where these items go in the source vault is called 'archive' instead of 'trash.'

    Ben

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User]
    Community Member

    @Ben I don't want to de-rail the discussion, but that's not what I'm seeing. When I move items between vaults the moved items go to Recently Deleted in the source vault.
    Does the behaviour depend on the sync type? If you don't have 1password.com membership then Recently Deleted is not available, so it goes to Archive instead?

This discussion has been closed.