Gradual migration from Safari-saved passwords - best tactics?

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jgarbers
jgarbers
Community Member
in 1Password in the Browser

At my daughter's urging, I've returned to 1Password after several years of using Safari's built-in password management features. I'm delighted to see all of the new features and capabilities since we started with 1Password 3 (been a while!), but I could use some help in making a smooth transition away from Safari password management and letting 1P take control.

Here's how I would like this to work:

  1. Turn off Safari's AutoFill so 1P does filling when it can.
  2. For websites that I haven't moved to 1P yet, take some explicit action in Safari to have it do the fill, and then have 1P pick up those credentials for next time.
  3. After a few months, the sites I really use will be in 1P, so then just kill all the old Safari passwords.

Step #2 seems to be the hard part. I though Cmd-Shift-A would explicitly fill the login fields, but it doesn't.

I've tried the migration process that involves the AppleScript and Keychain export, but it doesn't seem to work in High Sierra, and I'd rather not clutter up 1P with a bunch of old, unused credentials anyway.

Is my only real option here to leave Safari AutoFill off, go to a website, open Safari preferences to the Passwords tab, provide TouchID or the login password, find the website I'm on, copy the username / password through the clipboard to the site, and let 1P pick up the info from there? (Phew!)

I've also considered just doing a password reset for each site I visit that's not in 1P already, and letting 1P make up its own more secure password... that seems like it'd take a while but might be a better strategy in the long run.

Any suggestions or insights from folks who've been down this road will be most welcome. Thanks in advance!

1Password Version: 6.8.5
Extension Version: 4.6.12
OS Version: OS X 10.13.2
Sync Type: 1Password Account

Comments

  • MrC
    MrC
    Volunteer Moderator
    edited March 2018
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    I've tried the migration process that involves the AppleScript and Keychain export, but it doesn't seem to work in High Sierra, and I'd rather not clutter up 1P with a bunch of old, unused credentials anyway.

    That's correct. High Sierra has made it impractical at best, impossible at worst.

    EDIT: Version 1.10 of the keychain converter now natively decrypts the macOS keychain.

  • bundtkate
    bundtkate
    Options

    @jgarbers: While I went through this process on Windows with passwords saved in Firefox rather than Safari meaning there may be a better way to handle this on Mac, my method should still work for you and I found it fairly painless. I just stopped saving NEW passwords in Firefox by telling it to never save when it asked, but otherwise allowed it to continue to fill for me for a bit. 1Password would offer to save those passwords and, over time, I saw the save prompt less and less and ultimately turned off Firefox's "password manager" when I felt like I hadn't seen the save prompt in a while. I don't think it took more than a week to get most everything into 1Password and, since old passwords were still saved in Firefox, I could always turn it back on temporarily when I found a data gap. That would be my suggestion. Not quite what you're looking for, but I think you'd be surprised how quickly you'll switch to using 1Password exclusively. :chuffed:

  • jgarbers
    jgarbers
    Community Member
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    Thanks, @bundtkate ! I'm following your suggestion, having turned Safari AutoFill back on and letting it do its thing while "teaching" 1P about the credentials. Usually (but not always?) 1P offers to save the Safari-entered creds. The only pages I seem to be having problems with are ones (like some banks) where the username is entered on one page and the password on another, but that's another issue. Thanks again for your help!

  • jxpx777
    jxpx777
    1Password Alumni
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    I'm glad to hear that's helping, @jgarbers. When you get things moved over to 1Password and disable Safari's password manager, you can still retrieve other passwords for the sites you haven't used recently by using the Keychain Access application on your Mac without turning Safari's password filling back on. Let us know if you have any other questions!

    --
    Jamie Phelps
    Code Wrangler @ AgileBits
    Fort Worth, Texas

  • rm48il
    rm48il
    Community Member
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    I've changed my Safari passwords to stronger versions with 1pw. Now that I've turned Safari Autofill off, the version in Safari is not updated to the new 1pw version.
    Should it be?

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni
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    @rm48il: It sounds like you did the opposite of what Kate suggested: rather than having 1Password save your Safari passwords over time, you had Safari save the passwords 1Password generated, in stead of saving them in 1Password itself. If you used 1Password to fill them first though, you should be able to find saved Password items for them:

    If you used the password generator and can’t find the password to sign in

    Going forward, I recommend following this guide to make sure that when you change the password for a website you save it in 1Password as well:

    Change your passwords and make them stronger

    I hope this helps. Be sure to let me know if you have any other questions! :)

This discussion has been closed.