Documents/"Item Reference" functionality is an absolute dumpster fire!
I consider myself to be an "advanced" 1Password user (and a macOS/iOS "power user" in general), but I still don't understand how the documents linking functionality works, when moving/copying items to different vaults.
In the past, if I "attached" a file to a vault item, such as a software license-key file, or a photo to my Drivers License entry, those attachments stayed with the item, even if I moved them to another vault.
Ever since 1PW version 6, however, I have grown accustomed to being absolutely afraid of copying or moving vault items anymore, because I always get the dreaded "Item References Found" notification, along with the scary warning that I will "lose" the references if I copy or move the main vault item.
It makes no sense to me why I can't just move my Driver's License vault item (which has photos of my license attached to it) to my wife's shared 1PW/Families vault, and have the attachments follow along with it. I've since learned that ignoring the "Item References Found" warning does not actually delete those items from my 1PW vault, but since the "references" to those items within the specific vault items are lost, from a practical standpoint, those files might as well be deleted, because the only way to restore those references are to manually find them in the "Documents" category and reattach them again. And God help you if those attachments were not named in a way that would make it obvious which vault item it might be associated with...and God help you even MORE if you are on an iOS device, because there appears to be no way to reattach documents to vault items on the iOS version.
While I do like the idea of a general "Documents" category in 1PW, the method of linking those documents with individual vault items in 1PW6 feels like a regression. I really don't need to see all of my software license "key-files" in the Documents category, because I would never need to access them as normal documents, in the same way that I would probably want to frequently access a PDF document, for example.
1Password Version: 6.6.3
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: OS X 10.11.6
Sync Type: 1PW for Families
Comments
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Hi @melorama,
Thank you very much for taking the time to share your thoughts with us about attachments/Documents! I'm sorry you haven't had a great experience with the Documents feature, but I'll do my best to clear up some confusion about how this all works.
As you already know, attachments are handled a bit differently in 1Password.com accounts. Instead of being attached to specific items, files added to account vaults become individual items in the Documents category. If you copy an item from a local/standalone vault to a 1Password.com account vault, and that item has an attachment, that attachment will become a Document, and the item that used to contain the attachment will now have a link under Related Items (you can click on the link to jump to that Document). The Related Items feature can also be used with other kinds of items (not just Documents).
...I still don't understand how the documents linking functionality works, when moving/copying items to different vaults.
With the Related Items feature, an item in a vault can link to other items in the same vault. But an item in one vault cannot link to items in a different vault, even if both vaults are in the same account. Therefore, when copying an item from one vault to another, any links (references) in the Related Items section will be removed from the new copy of the item in the destination vault, because those links will no longer work.
In the past, if I "attached" a file to a vault item, such as a software license-key file, or a photo to my Drivers License entry, those attachments stayed with the item, even if I moved them to another vault.
That's correct, because in local/standalone vaults (which you used before switching to an account), an attachment was part of the item being copied/moved, instead of being a separate item. In account vaults, an item can have a link to a Document, but they are two separate items.
It makes no sense to me why I can't just move my Driver's License vault item (which has photos of my license attached to it) to my wife's shared 1PW/Families vault, and have the attachments follow along with it.
That's because there are no attachments in 1Password.com accounts - instead, there are Document items which can be linked to other items. If you move one of the linked items to a different vault, the link between those two items will no longer work (again, items can only link to other items in the same vault). In your example, you would need to move both the Driver's License item and the Document item (the one with the photo of the license) to the other vault, and then link them together in the new vault by editing the Related Items section.
I've since learned that ignoring the "Item References Found" warning does not actually delete those items from my 1PW vault...
That's correct - a Reference is just a link to another item, and not the actual item itself.
...the only way to restore those references are to manually find them in the "Documents" category and reattach them again.
Yes, unfortunately that's necessary to link the new copies of the items together in the new vault. The Related Items section should still show the name of the item it used to link to though, which should help. But even so, that's all extra work that didn't used to be necessary when moving items with attachments from one local/standalone vault to another local/standalone vault. If you copy/move items between vaults often, I can definitely see how that would quickly become frustrating.
I'm very sorry that's not nearly as seamless and convenient as it used to be! You're not alone in wishing this was easier, and this is an area we definitely want to improve. We really appreciate your feedback about all this!
If you need anything else, please don't hesitate to let us know. Cheers! :)
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I must be missing something. When I move items from my personal vault to my archives vault, any linked documents go with them. What am I missing about this thread?
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@rlgleason51: Since Documents are separate items, they shouldn't be automatically moved when you move other items unless you've selected them as well. Are you maybe seeing broken links to other items after moving between vaults? We don't have a solution for this yet, but it's something we're working on. It's confusing, and we need to make it more intuitive.
ref: OPM-4327
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Maybe i moved them from my standalone archives vault, instead of my personal vault. Oh well, another memory loss.
It would be nice if the docs could be linked to its main item so that any movement would be joint.
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It's a bit of a technical challenge, but if we can overcome it and make it transparent to the user it will help a lot of people. :)
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