How to adjust password recipe for special characters?

Mork

I am seeing more and more Web sites that tell me "which special characters" they will accept.

For these Web sites, I end up using the free utility "pwgenerator", since I haven't found a way to tell 1Password which special characters to use for creating "this password only".

So, is there a way to tell 1Password which special characters to use for the current password? If not, this would be a nice addition since sites are getting more strict about which special characters are acceptable.

I just spent 30 minutes generating a password (finally got it right using pwgenerator) for a picky Web site.

Look forward to hearing back.

Thanks,

Drew_AG

Hi @Mork,

I'm sorry you had trouble generating a password that worked with a picky website! It's not currently possible to specify the use of only certain special characters in 1Password's strong password generator. This is something some other users have also requested, and although I can't promise anything, I'll be happy to add your feedback to our open feature request for that. It would certainly come in handy on websites that restrict which special characters you can use in a password!

If you have more questions or feedback, please let us know. Thanks!

ref: OPM-1378

Mork

At least the free "pwgenerator" does this for me. It's not often I need to restrict special characters, but I was surprised that a mature program like 1Password couldn't do it.

Thanks for your reply.

Drew_AG

No problem! Hopefully we'll have more options for you in the future.

We're here for you if you need anything else! :)

Mork

Yes, one more thing...

Do you know if it's possible (perhaps I am doing something wrong) to sync via wi-fi my 1Password non-Primary vaults ONLY? Whenever I've tried to sync, 1Passowrd grays out the primary vault (it seems to insist on synching primary vault), but, regardless of the security, I NEVER want to sync the primary vault.

My workaround so far is to just store nothing important in the primary vault, which is me working around the software instead of the other way around.

Perhaps I am not understanding how this feature works?

Thanks in advance,

Megan

Hi @Mork,

At this time it is not possible to sync only your secondary vaults via Wi-Fi. We're still working on refining how Wi-Fi works (syncing of secondary vaults is a recent addition to this feature), so I'm happy to mention to our team that you'd like to see more flexibility here.

ref: OPI-2320

atomicpirate

I'm +1 for creating custom character "palettes" for websites, it'd be nice to make the passwords as strong as possible with that little bit of extra customization.

littlebobbytables

Greetings @atomicpirate,

I've added your desire to see this, I too hope we can do something better here :smile:

ref: OPM-1378

mike429

I typically have my password recipe set to "pronounceable" with digit separators. If I encounter a site that insists on including a special character from a defined set, I just manually append one to the end of the pronounceable password. Not a big deal; keep it long and it'll still be strong.

AGAlumB

@mike429: That's a great tip! Indeed, 90% random is indistinguishable from 100% random when the attacker doesn't know you've manually added a character or two. ;)

TkPkMoCo

Another +1 on being able to adjust the special character set.

A great implementation would be the ability to store a special character set as an option for a given login entry. that way the site specific character set would be available for future password changes.

Drew_AG

Thanks for your feedback about that, @TkPkMoCo! I'll be happy to add it to our internal tracker. :)

ref: OPM-1378

syncrasy

+1 on being able to adjust the special character set. Specifically, many web sites require characters from the top row of the keyboard (!#$%^&* etc) but do not allow other characters ([]\<>,.?/ etc). I too am surprised a mature program like 1Password hasn't implemented this option since this type of character requirement has been around for many, many years.

AGAlumB

@syncrasy: Thanks for letting us know you'd find this type of feature useful! In fact, we intentionally try to avoid adding options (and even take some away from time to time) to keep 1Password lean and usable by folks of varying technical backgrounds. So you'll have to excuse us if we're not in a hurry to add more options. We try to be careful about that, since if we added every option we've ever been asked for, 1Password would look like this, only shinier:

But maybe that would be a good April Fools prank (or Halloween 'costume'!) :pirate:

syncrasy

With all due respect, your argument is fallacious (straw man), and a bit insulting. We're not asking for every option that's ever been asked for. And the functionality we're asking for is not an expert option that would confuse beginning users as you suggest (another straw man argument). We're asking for functionality that would make 1Password usable in common situations where it currently fails (for people of all technical backgrounds). If fact, the functionality could be implemented as the default behavior, rather than an option: 1Password could allow use of only special characters from the top row on the keyboard, thereby making it transparent to all users without having to think about it.

At the very least pass this suggestion on to the developers with my comments.

Vee_AG

Hi @syncrasy,

Point well taken. On behalf of @brenty, I apologize for any offense or insult, and I'm sure it was unintended.

I have passed on your very reasonable suggestions to the devs in our internal tracker for this issue. I know they are working to improve the Password Generator, though of course I can't comment on an ETA.

Thanks so much for your feedback! We are always looking for ways to improve 1Password to meet users' needs, and this is a great example of a need where we can improve. Cheers. :)
ref: OPM-1378

AGAlumB

@syncrasy: Sorry! I meant no offense. I guess I should have stopped at "Thanks for letting us know you'd find this type of feature useful!" But I was trying — and failing — to elicit a grin (tis the season!) in the process. Lesson learned. :lol: