We're not here to lecture. You know you need a password manager, and you know that
1Password gets praised a lot for how it stores your passwords, and how it generates stronger ones than mere mortals could. We could just point out that 1Password is now
free for basic use on iOS, but instead, we're going to enthuse. Specifically, we are here to enthuse about what else 1Password does that makes it such a useful tool on our Macs.
It is on iOS too, as well as Android and Windows, but this Pointers is about the OS X version. These are the things that don't just speed up your day, they make you dislike using Macs that haven't got it installed -- it's
that handy.
Speaking of installing, do this before anything else. Okay, do this
after you've got 1Password, but then before anything else: get the free extension.
Install the extension
If you
go to the Agile Bits page for 1Password extensions then it will spot the browser you're using, and offer you a Big Green Button to click on. Do that, and it will install the extension. If it's got your browser wrong for any reason, you can click to choose the right one. Your choices are Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera.
The extension just does one thing: it gives you a keystroke that you can use in your browser that will call up the mini 1Password from your menubar. By default, that's command-minus (-) but you can change it if you need to. Best to change it right away though, because that command-minus become muscle memory very quickly.
Now, here's the first non-password-like thing that you don't realize 1Password does, but you will forever afterwards use it all the time.
Bookmarks
Maybe you have a Favorites bar, and maybe you even still use the bookmarks menu in your browser, but command-minus launches mini-1Password, and the first thing it does is show you a list of your favorite sties. Actually, not quite: if you are already on a site that you've saved in 1Password and have logins for, mini-1Password will log you in. If you're on a site that you have many accounts with, then mini-1Password will show you all your accounts.
You always get your favorites listed too, and there are sections for different features of 1Password -- like bank account details, credit cards and generating new passwords. If you don't see the site you want, or it isn't in your favorites list, start typing its name and 1Password will search for it in its own database.
That last part is key. This is no use to you if you're going to a new site: it isn't a Google search replacement. However, if you have the site in 1Password, the odds are that it's one you need a password to use. Pressing command-minus, typing the first few letters of a site, and pressing Return doesn't just take you off to the site in your browser.
It takes you to the site, and it logs you in. So from thinking you need to check a detail in your work's Gmail account to actually doing that is now a couple of keystrokes. Not only do you not have to stop to think what the password is, this is so fast you'll stop realizing that you even use a password.
Play nice
Not all sites will allow 1Password (or anything else) to automatically pop details in for the login, such as banks and brokerages. Usually that's because they deliberately insist on security that happens to make it hard for them to work with 1Password. Sometimes, however, it's because the site is poorly-designed.
There is one we use often, for instance, whose design means if we let 1Password enter the username and password, then the site takes us to the Lost Password section. Every time.
Yet with 1Password, you can tell it to stop short. Tell it to enter the username and password, but then wait for you to press the login button. That solves that poor design. It doesn't solve the requirement to manually enter details, but even there, 1Password does have a trick for you.
Tear off details
When you have to slog through manually typing in details that 1Password already has, bring up the mini-1Password, and find the site but don't click on it. Select it with your cursor, and press left or right until you get a pop-out menu. We can't specify whether it's right or left because it depends on how close the menubar icon is to the side of your screen. Also, weirdly, we regular have to press left in order to go right. It's a bug, but you get used to it.
That pop out menu is more like a panel with all the details for the site on it. Notice the anchor symbol at bottom left. Click on that, and the panel stays on the screen as a separate window.
You can copy-and-paste individual sections, or you can just read it as you type into the site. Then close the window and carry on. That panel has all the details of the site and your login -- and you can edit it right there without opening the main 1Password app -- but sometimes you don't want to list all details.
Take it to the bank
We have every single one of our bank accounts included in 1Password, and not one single one of them is able to completely log in by themselves. They all stop short of the last detail needed to log in to our accounts and clean us out, and that is by design.
If you do online banking, you do this. What you may not do, though, is keep the details in 1Password anyway. It can store fields for secret words and the like, or you can pop stuff into a general notes field and be sure that it is all secure.
Save software licences
If you only buy software from the Mac App Store, this won't especially help you. However, when you buy from the maker directly, you invariably get an email with your registration details. Drag that email to the main 1Password app (not the mini one in the menu). Just drag it, and 1Password parses all the information before creating an entry with your registration code, username and more.
You can also enter your details directly into a 1Password Software License section -- and when you do that, 1Password automatically fetches the app's icon for you. So now you have all your software details in one place, synced across all your devices just like your passwords -- and because they have the icons, you can see immediately which is which.
The 1Password app is for passwords -- but it's so good at handling anything where you ever need an account, that it becomes a safe repository for everything. It becomes the way you leap to sites one after another, barely thinking about it, and certainly not having to remember passwords.
-- William Gallagher (
@WGallagher)
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