Scan QR code from clipboard on Mac?

jboren

Greetings,

In my experience, the qr code scanner fails to work a large percentage of the time. When it does fail, you have to screenshot the QR code and use the "from Clipboard" option to scan it. On Windows. On the mac this feature doesn't seem to exist. How do we add an OTP to an entry on the Mac, if the scanner won't work?

Thanks!
Joe

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1Password Version: 7.4.1 (70401002)
Extension Version: 4.7.5.90
OS Version: OS X 10.14.6
Sync Type: Teams

ag_ana

Hi @jboren!

The QR code scanner should work pretty much every time, so let's focus on why that is not happening to you. Can you please give us an example of website where this fails so we can test it here too?

jboren

Hi @ag_ana

Sure, I'm happy to do that, however.... I don't actually have an example at this point, because the last user to have this issue was doing a personal thing, which I didn't have time to help with at that moment, and they sorted it out later on their own. But today I was explaining how to add a OTP entry to a new user, and started trying to show them the clipboard alternative and couldn't find it. I work about 50/50 on PC/Mac and apparently I've never tried to do this on the Mac. Which probably means the scanner has always worked for me on my mac.

Secondly, there's no way to guarantee that the scanner is always going to work and never fail, and even if it works 99.99% of the time it's going to fail in the worst possible circumstances, not when 1password support people are 3 minutes away. (Seriously that was crazy fast!) So I think it's important to have an alternative option for something this important, and right now the only alternative is to use a camera or physical scanner. The clipboard option is really great, because you can easily get an image into the clipboard from pretty much anything on your computer. Additionally, you can use it as a verification that you're dealing with a nonstandard or broken QR code because if it won't scan multiple ways you can be pretty sure the code is the problem. If you only have one way, if it doesn't work you're stuck and don't know why. And without fail, you will be, like, in antarctica on a sat phone paying $50/min for 256Kb/s speeds. :)

So maybe this is more of a feature request. But as soon as I get another user having issues with the qr code scanner and I can't figure it out, I'll come back and we can troubleshoot it. Hopefully you're right and this will never happen, but I really like the clipboard option, it's been the only thing that worked a couple of times on windows.

Thanks!
Joe

Ben

Thanks Joe. In theory the QR scanner should be doing the same processing on the image that other methods are doing, so I'm surprised to hear results are different between them. They should work the same. Please do let us know if you hear of a specific example we can work through, and we'll keep an ear out for other feedback on the issue as well.

Ben

NearlyThere

I've only just started trying to use the QR scanner on my Mac. Unless I'm doing something wrong it has failed to recognise the QR code on both occasions. I hover over the QR code on screen, but nothing happens. None of the menu choices in the bottom RHS activeate the recognition of the QR code and pressing return doesn't work either. Resorted to using the camera on my phone or copying the text version of the sahred secret.

Ben

@NearlyThere

Are you using macOS 10.15? If so it sounds like you may have disallowed the screen recording permission for 1Password, which is necessary for 1Password to be able to read QR codes from your screen.

If you see "1Password would like to record this screen" on your Mac

Please let me know if that helps.

Ben

ag_tommy

@NearlyThere

I can attest to it's likely the issue Ben linked too. I recently upgraded, and it took me a bit to figure it out. :(

One thing that I noticed is that the locators around the QR capture window are green when the permissions are set incorrectly. Once you successfully allow the proper permissions they turn blue.

NearlyThere

I have now changed the permissions in Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy >Screen Recording and now 1Password can capture the QR codes on Screen

ag_tommy

Glad to hear it, thank you for letting me know. :)

sergeyklochko

Did I miss something? I have permissions turned on and blue corners, but window still opaque and I can't capture QR from screen. Drop file method available and camera. What can I do?

ag_ana

@sergeyklochko:

Did you download 1Password from our website, or from the Mac App Store?

sergeyklochko

Just tell me where GOOD 1password is. Then I download it from there. :)

1Password 7
Version 7.4.4 (70404001)
App Store for Mac

Should I download it from site to activate again so useful thing?

ag_ana

@sergeyklochko:

Yes, please download 1Password from our website instead. The Mac App Store version of 1Password unfortunately cannot use the QR code scanner anymore, due to a recent Apple change.