Feature Request: OTP 2FA MFA copy / fill keyboard shortcut (Two-Factor Authentication)

13

Comments

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni
    edited September 2016

    When autofilling, how does 1password generally decide what goes where?

    @jkeroes: The answer to this question could fill (and does) many, many lines of code split between the main 1Password apps and the browser extensions. Suffice to say there is no one-size-fits-all solution to login filling, or we'd have perfected it years ago! :lol:

    However, you (and likely others in this discussion) may be interested to know that we're testing a new feature in the current beta: the TOTP code is copied to the clipboard on login fill. Very handy for the inevitable next step in the process. Let us know what you think! ;)

  • Thomas
    Thomas
    Community Member

    Can't wait to see this feature in the production release!

  • lucianf
    lucianf
    Community Member

    Sounds a bit hackish :) but sure, I'd take anything that can make the workflow easier. Right now there's a lot of friction around getting the TOTP code. The most annoying part for me is that once you copy the code and the 1Password mini window goes away, focus is not returned to the original window (e.g. Safari), even though the application seems to be in focus, so that takes another mouse click, and just feels wrong.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni
    edited September 2016

    @Thomas: Likewise! :)

    Sounds a bit hackish :) but sure, I'd take anything that can make the workflow easier. Right now there's a lot of friction around getting the TOTP code.

    @lucianf: Technically I think TOTP itself is a bit of a hack — along with 99% of the login forms out there. Web developers are certainly the creative type! Keeps us busy and out of trouble. ;)

    The most annoying part for me is that once you copy the code and the 1Password mini window goes away, focus is not returned to the original window (e.g. Safari), even though the application seems to be in focus, so that takes another mouse click, and just feels wrong.

    That sounds like the start of a bug report! Can you give me more information? I'm not seeing that myself. I just used this to login to my Google Account, and the browser maintained focus as expected. Please let me know the OS, 1Password, browser, and extension versions you have installed. We'll get to the bottom of this! :)

  • lucianf
    lucianf
    Community Member

    Safari 10.0, 1Password 6.3.3 (MAS), extension 4.5.9 - but it's been like this forever. Basically if I invoke the 1Password mini using the keyboard shortcut, then navigate to the TOTP code and select it with mouse, then the mini window goes away but focus is lost on the previous form element (eg if I was in a text field), so I have to click it again before I can paste.

    Note that (I just found out now) this works ok if I don't do any mouse clicks, ie navigate the mini window using just the keyboard, or mouse hovers through the menus.

    I hope I make sense :)

  • Drew_AG
    Drew_AG
    1Password Alumni

    Thank you for the additional details, @lucianf! It looks like that's a known issue, and I apologize for the inconvenience. It's not specific to the TOTP field - the same thing happens when clicking other fields (and in other browsers). I'll let our developers know you're also running into this problem. As you discovered, the workaround is to hit return/enter to copy the TOTP field instead of clicking on it.

    If you have more questions about that, just let us know (we can move to a new discussion so as not to get off-topic in this one). Cheers! :)

    ref: OPM-1519

  • lucianf
    lucianf
    Community Member

    Thanks @Drew_AG. Yes you're right I did notice this was a general issue related to clicking and not TOTP in particular (but in my case it only adds friction when using TOTP). I'd appreciate if you fixed it - the workaround is also inconvenient since it involves using mouse & keyboard together, so it doesn't remove the friction around the task. [/offtopic - nothing to say any further about this one]

    One more comment about the TOTP feature mentioned by @brenty on 9/28. It will not address all use cases - if you let the browser save your password (please don't lecture me on that ;) ) then 1Password will not have a chance to put the TOTP into the clipboard. I personally still think having a separate shortcut to fill in just the TOTP for the current site, as per the same rules as normal logins, would be the better approach (and less 'hackish').

  • Drew_AG
    Drew_AG
    1Password Alumni

    Thanks for your feedback about that, we really appreciate it!

    In case you're curious, the reason why 1Password can't fill a TOTP the same way it fills the username/password is because it doesn't support filling custom fields. So, the same is true for any other custom field you might add to an item in 1Password. Maybe that's something that we can change one day, but it's definitely an "easier said than done" situation.

    As you can tell by the number of posts in this thread, this is something we hear about a lot from customers, so our developers wanted to do something to help make it easier to enter the TOTP on a web form. And they did. I suppose the "ideal" solution would be to somehow fill the TOTP the same way as a username or password, but I have no idea how long that feature might take, or if we'll be able to do it at all. In the meantime, the new "copy" feature we added for the TOTP makes it a lot easier in most cases, and is something our developers were able to add in a much shorter timeframe than other options will take. But it doesn't mean we won't continue to look into those other options.

    Thanks again, and have a great weekend! :)

  • lucianf
    lucianf
    Community Member

    Thanks @Drew_AG. Please don't take my suggestions as criticism (there is a tiny note of frustration in your reply); I'm only giving you my feedback from a user's point of view, hoping you can plug this into your future planning - that's all. In the meantime the "copy" feature is certainly going to make a difference. I really appreciate your product, it's probably the thing (along with LaunchBar) I use most on a day to day basis, on both desktop & mobile.

    Here's another suggestion. If you implemented a separate shortcut for TOTP, you could ask the user the first time it runs on a form that is already in your database to point to the TOTP field (e.g. like how the "element selection" crosshairs tool works in Safari's web inspector). That way you get a chance to save the input field name and you'll be able to fill it in automatically in the future. You already have that information for user/password fields and I take your point that it takes a lot of analysis to get it right on your own (and you're still missing it in some very edge cases). But if in this case you get the user to do it for you, no magic is needed.

    Alternatively, to make it even simpler for an initial version, you could just offer us the option to enter the TOTP field name in the database (e.g. in "Web form details"). I have 973 items in my database but only 16 entries with TOTP - I would gladly spend half an hour to fix them manually. While I understand this would be a feature for advanced users, it would still be a long way to go.

    Could these work?

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @lucianf: I think if Drew was frustrated at all, it may be similar to my own source of frustration: that there just isn't a way for all of us to get exactly what we want. What we want is for 1Password to be an awesome experience for everyone, and it's a bit of a bummer (understatement of the year) that it isn't and – quite frankly — can't be, since we all have slightly different needs and preferences. :chuffed:

    I won't lecture you about using the browser's password feature. But I hope you'll understand that it probably isn't something we should design around. I'm not convinced that many people (besides you and I) would be on board with the idea of spending an extended period of time tweaking items in their vault, but adding more flexibility is certainly something we can consider. Also, the "field targeting" feature you suggested is probably a bit over-the-top for most users, but I think it sounds pretty fun. I guess my biggest concern is that it sounds power-user-targeted...and I'm not sure many power users want to give up their keyboard jockey status in that fashion. ;)

    I think I speak for Drew and the rest of the team here at AgileBits when I say, "Criticism? Bring it on!" So long as it's constructive, everybody wins: we're inspired by your thoughts and suggestions to make 1Password even better. I'm not sure what the solution is here, but given that this is a new feature, I suspect we'll continue to refine it going forward. Cheers! :sunglasses:

  • fred909
    fred909
    Community Member

    +1 on this. It would be great to be able to make a "Web form" field use the MFA token.

    The fact that the AWS login page is multiple pages shouldn't matter. I use 1P to autofill other multipage login forms.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @fred909: While 1Password cannot recognize all of the various TOTP prompts out there, it's something we'll continue to explore. In the mean time, we've added the ability for 1Password to automatically copy the TOTP code to the clipboard for you when filling login credentials in the next version (6.5). Keep an eye out for updates! :)

  • lucianf
    lucianf
    Community Member

    @brenty I've just updated to 6.5.1 (and manually updated the extension to 4.6.2 just to make sure) and can't find this new feature anywhere. I've checked all the menus, including Advanced and I can't seem to find any option related to the TOTP code. Am I missing something or have you not actually deployed this just yet?

  • @lucianf,

    It was decided to keep the copy to clipboard in beta a little longer while we refine the behavior, it has not shipped in 6.5 or 6.5.1.

    Rudy

  • cjs226
    cjs226
    Community Member
    • 1 for this. copy to clipboard, at least, would be a welcome addition.
  • Roman
    Roman
    1Password Alumni

    @cjs226 - Thanks for your vote! We're working on it. :)

  • msteele
    msteele
    Community Member

    +1

  • sjk
    sjk
    1Password Alumni

    Thanks for your interest, @msteele. :+1:

  • jcxia
    jcxia
    Community Member

    Just upgraded to beta, it's super handy and saves tons of time. Great work guys! :+1:

  • lucianf
    lucianf
    Community Member

    I went through the process of replacing my MAS version with the website one, then upgraded to the latest beta, but can't find this new feature anywhere (not even mentioned in the release notes). @jcxia can you provide more details?

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @jcxia: Glad to hear it! Hopefully we can make this available in the stable version as well. :)

    @lucianf: There's nothing to find. You just fill a login with TOTP using the beta version of 1Password for Mac and it copies the code to the clipboard. That's it. :pirate:

    It was mentioned in the release notes when we originally added it, but it's been removed and added so many times since then that we haven't bothered since. I suspect it will get a mention when it ships finally though. Cheers! ;)

  • lucianf
    lucianf
    Community Member

    @brenty: Thanks, I noticed it just now while logging in to a site that used TOTP. I was just confused by not seeing anything in the release notes or in the preferences. Stealth but smooth :)

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @lucianf: Great! I'm not sure that we want it to be stealth since less people are likely to benefit from it. I actually get desktop notifications in macOS when the TOTP is copied, but I know it's easy to turn those off (I do for most apps, frankly). Hopefully we can make this useful and more discoverable. :)

  • lucianf
    lucianf
    Community Member

    No, I meant stealth as in it's not mentioned anywhere in the app or website (release notes), so yeah, I meant it wasn't discoverable. Anyway, whoever implemented this deserves a large beer ;)

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    Done and done. ;) :+1:

  • alisade
    alisade
    Community Member

    just installed Version 6.7.BETA-5 (670005) and the TOTP clipboard feature works like a charm, thank so much guys!

  • Drew_AG
    Drew_AG
    1Password Alumni

    Glad to hear you like that feature, @alisade! It definitely comes in handy. :)

  • mikefoley
    mikefoley
    Community Member

    Any idea when this will make it to the Mac App Store? Can I use the beta in the meantime, leaving both installed? If so, where can I grab it from?

  • Drew_AG
    Drew_AG
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @mikefoley,

    I don't know when this feature will make it to the stable releases of 1Password (Mac App Store or AgileBits Store version) as we don't have a timeframe for that.

    If you'd like to help us test beta releases, you'll first need to switch to the AgileBits Store version. I don't recommend keeping both the Mac App Store and AgileBits Store versions installed at the same time because that can cause confusion and even problems. If you decide to switch, we explain how to do that here: How to switch to the version of 1Password from the AgileBits website

    Once you've done that, you can switch to the beta by following the steps here: How to use 1Password beta versions

    We're here for you if you have questions about that! :)

  • Drew_AG
    Drew_AG
    1Password Alumni

    @mikefoley, I forgot to mention that if you do decide to try the beta version of 1Password for Mac, you can post about issues or give feedback about it in our Mac Beta forum. Cheers! :)

This discussion has been closed.