Generate Password gone in v7.3? [use "+ Generate New Password"]

bunko
bunko
Community Member
edited July 2019 in Mac

I went to generate a new password in the new version, and can't find it. Please tell me Generate Password hasn't been removed as part of the highly touted "new improvements".


1Password Version: 7.3
Extension Version: 7.3
OS Version: OS X 10.14.4
Sync Type: Dropbox
Referrer: forum-search:Generate Password gone?

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Comments

  • Hi @bunko

    ⌘N or clicking on "+ New Password" will bring up the password generator. :+1:

    Ben

  • bunko
    bunko
    Community Member

    But when I want to replace the password for an existing entry, e.g my Apple ID, New Password creates a whole new entry, instead of updating the existing one with a new password. Generate Password would update the existing entry with the new password.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @bunko: That's not the case. If you generate a password and use to to change your password on a site and update your Login item in the process, the superfluous Password item is removed:

    Change your passwords and make them stronger

    But if you're having trouble with a specific site, be sure to let us know the URL so we can investigate. :)

  • bunko
    bunko
    Community Member

    You're right, it did update. But it's confusing to see that new item created before the existing one is updated.

  • Ben
    Ben
    edited June 2019

    That was happening in the background in previous versions as well, we're just more explicit about the fact that we're doing it now. :+1: We do that for this purpose:

    If you used the password generator and can't find the password to sign in | 1Password

    Ben

  • rocky0
    rocky0
    Community Member

    The new UI is really confusing. It seems as though it's updating the password for the login, and often when I generate a password, it won't be accepted by the site (too long, too many non-alphanumericals, etc.), and I don't want the password updated until I know it was accepted. I was much more comfortable with the generate password workflow, which I could easily "copy", and then paste, and then update the login if successful. What is happening when I do new password exactly? It says, copied and saved.

  • Hi @rocky0,

    When you generate and copy a password we save it as a password item. This is separate from any existing login items. We've done this for quite some time, it is only more visible that it is happening in the UI now. I talked a little more about this in my post just above yours. If you then go on to change the password for a website using that generated password and save the password into a login item 1Password will clean up the no longer needed password item.

    Ben

  • pwbimm
    pwbimm
    Community Member

    Can I no longer specify how many numbers and special characters should be in the new password?

  • ag_ana
    ag_ana
    1Password Alumni

    @pwbimm: not in 1Password mini (those amounts are also random now), but you can still control the sliders for them inside the desktop app if you need more control for certain passwords.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @pwbimm: Ana is correct, but that will likely change in the future. Nothing is set in stone though, so if you can let us know why you are looking to set a specific number of numbers or special characters (as opposed to including some, which is a common website requirement still these days) we can take that into consideration along with other feedback as we continue to develop the password generator.

  • pwbimm
    pwbimm
    Community Member

    The password requirements for many sites is frustrating when it comes to using special characters, IMHO. Many times I'd like to specify that 1P mini (browser) create a new password using lots of letters and numbers but only one symbol. Recently I had to scroll through about a dozen possible passwords before 1P mini created one that would work. Why not just hide some password generating controls that could be accessed, if necessary?

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @pwbimm: Thanks for getting back to me. I can't disagree that arbitrary password restrictions can be frustrating sometimes. :) But since it isn't possible for us to account for all the crazy stuff out there -- especially if we haven't seen a particular case -- our goal with 1Password is to provide sane defaults and additional settings that work in the vast majority of cases without sacrificing security or usability. If you run into a specific case, please let me know the URL so we can investigate. In the mean time, you can find more information on the current password generator here, and the source for the underlying engine (which is considerably more flexible than what we can reasonably expose in the UI) can be found here. :)

    To answer you question,

    Why not just hide some password generating controls that could be accessed, if necessary?

    If they're hidden, I'm not sure how useful they can be. If additional options are really needed, it would be better to have them readily available. So specific examples would be really useful for testing.

  • pwbimm
    pwbimm
    Community Member

    Well, the most recent website I had problems with is one you can't get to. This weekend I was creating a new online account at a credit card company. I entered my credit card info and was taken to another screen where I entered a new username and password. They allowed maybe 6 special characters. I asked 1P mini to create a new 19 character password including symbols and numbers. I had to scroll through a dozen or so possible passwords before finding one that would work. I had to write down the special characters since the pop-up window showing what was acceptable disappeared when the 1P mini window popped up. If I could tell 1P mini just to include, say, one special character, I probably could have found a workable password in 1-3 tries. Now, I could not include symbols in the password, but shouldn't 1P be able to do something like that without great difficulty?

  • @pwbimm

    We've made an attempt to limit the special characters / symbols that we include in generated passwords to those most likely to be accepted by the vast majority of websites. Unfortunately some sites, banks most notoriously, have gone out of their way to intentionally only accept symbols that are not commonly accepted elsewhere (likely in an effort to discourage password reuse). We'll continue to evaluate how we can best address this. If you run across the problem again could you please note:

    • the URL
    • which symbols are accepted by the site
    • which symbols 1Password is including that are not accepted

    I agree that 1 – 3 attempts should be plenty in most cases.

    Ben

  • aplnub
    aplnub
    Community Member
    edited June 2019

    I want to add my voice. I do not like the new UI (1Password Mini for Safari). Sometimes, I just want to generate a random password. I don't want it to save to my vault as a "password" entry. Why even make this change?

    The new UI is not obvious, confusing, and less efficient.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    I want to add my voice. I do not like the new UI (1Password Mini for Safari). Sometimes, I just want to generate a random password. I don't want it to save to my vault as a "password" entry. Why even make this change?

    @aplnub: That's the thing. As mentioned above, this isn't new behaviour:

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

    Even that support article was last updated nearly a year ago. What we have changed is that there's a button for "New Password" now, rather than selecting "Password Generator" in the side bar.

    I guess the question is why is it a problem for you now that Password items are being saved when you generate a new password? Again, they were in previous versions as well. Are you maybe being thrown off because they're being offered to you for filling on websites?

    The new UI is not obvious, confusing, and less efficient.

    If you'll let us know specifically what you find difficult, we can certainly take it into consideration along with everyone else's feedback.

  • aplnub
    aplnub
    Community Member

    Not having access to the older version, I’ll do the best I can.

    I would clock on the mini icon in my Safari toolbar. Scroll down to Generate New Password. Create a new password and copy it.

    I don’t believe it saved anywhere. I just copied it. Are you saying it saved it? I can’t find any evidence that it did looking through my password only entries and I generate a lot of random passwords I never had any intention of saving.

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni
    edited June 2019

    @aplnub

    Scroll down to Generate New Password. Create a new password and copy it.

    How, exactly?

    In previous versions of 1Password for Mac, if you clicked the browser extension icon or the mini in your Mac's toolbar, then "Password Generator" in the sidebar, it brought up 1Password's Strong Password Generator. You adjusted the settings to your liking, the clicked the dropdown to switch it from Fill to Copy. Then, you could paste your newly-generated password anywhere you liked...but also (as you'll see, below), a new Password item was also created in your vault.

    To be clear, in 7.2.6 and earlier, if you clicked either Fill or Copy, you would get a Password item saved. We intentionally make it quite difficult for users of either older versions or newer ones to generate a password using 1Password for Mac's in-app without saving it as a new Password item, precisely because we'd rather users who care about such things occasionally have to "curate" or "prune" unneeded passwords from the Passwords section of their 1Password databases, then any user generating a password in 1Password assuming we'd kept it safe for them, then pasting it somewhere and finding out they now cannot access their data because 1Password didn't save their password for them.

    Again, this is not new behavior; it's always happened. If you look in the Passwords category and don't find a lot of older generated passwords, that's going to be either because you already "curated" them at some point in the past, or you were generating these passwords in the context of a web-based Login form that immediately saved the form for you as a Login item as well...which removes the Password item. But it's not new behavior. Hope that helps! :)

  • aplnub
    aplnub
    Community Member

    Is there anyway for me to install an older version? Was it possible that I did a Command + C and grabbed the password?

  • ag_ana
    ag_ana
    1Password Alumni

    @aplnub:

    You can download previous versions of 1Password for Mac from our Downloads page (if you scroll to the bottom of the page).

    Was it possible that I did a Command + C and grabbed the password?

    You mean directly from the password field in the password generator?

  • aplnub
    aplnub
    Community Member

    @ag_ana Thank you. And yes, directly from the password generator. I just looked up all the password keys in my 1Password vault. Not enough there to even come close to my use of the generator.

  • When you save a password from the password generator on another item (i.e. a Login item) 1Password cleans up the password item left by the generator. The behavior really hasn't changed, it is just more evident now what is happening behind the scenes. In any event, we'd much rather save a few items that you end up not needing than not save something and get complaints from folks locked out of their accounts. We're going to continue to err on the side of caution on this one. :+1:

    We can't recommend using an older version. As a security focused company we'd always recommend running the latest versions of all of your software, but especially your operating system, web browser(s), and 1Password.

    Ben

  • aplnub
    aplnub
    Community Member

    I want to use the older version just to see how I did it. I probably won't. I love the product but the UI change was jarring.

  • Understood. Thank you for the feedback. :+1:

    Ben

  • catnamedmac
    catnamedmac
    Community Member

    I really like the new mini interface. By using the "Suggestions" preference it's simple to find/use the "Generate Password" button. This is a quick way to create a new one when a new password is needed for changing a password or the password generated needs to be refined due to character limitations. However, I feel that an easy to find "Generate Password" button should be implemented consistently across all 1Password products (particularlythe IOS version) to make it easier to find and more consistent.

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @catnamedmac - glad you like the new mini! :) I agree, cross-platform consistency is an important feature, and we do strive for it whenever possible. But no OSes are identical to each other, not even macOS and iOS, so there will never be an exact consistency. Just the smaller screen-size of iOS devices means there's less room to lay things out, requiring that we sometimes do it differently than we do in 1Password for Mac, where we have much more screen real-estate to work with than we do on iOS devices. Did you have any specific suggestions of what you'd like to see with regard to 1Password for iOS (or other 1Password apps on different platforms)?

  • RobH
    RobH
    Community Member

    I know this is an old thread, but I'd like to comment on it with regards to generating new passwords. Both versions save all generated passwords, which explains why I have a plethora of saved entries that have nothing to do with the password I created. Here's an example:

    I need to create several emails for a client on their domain. I'm going to generate random passwords and save this in a location for easy reference (like, DevonThink Pro). Every time I create a password, 1P saves this as though I wanted a password for DevonThink Pro, even though that password is in no way related to that app.

    This can be quite frustrating when I'm cleaning up entries later and see a bunch of passwords saved for an app or website - I have no idea and can't remember which are those I might need. This becomes quite the annoyance to in keeping track what's important and relevant and what can be safely deleted.

    I would like to see an option for generated passwords where I can COPY ONLY without saving it. This would save me a lot of time and frustration.

    Also, while we're talking about passwords, I'd like to see a combination of Memorable and Random generation. Currently, it's either something that can't be remembered or a too simple of a password that doesn't meet the standard for most websites. It would be great to have a combination that would generate passwords like:

    doggy9-space$-mapping

    Where you can select how many numbers and symbols appear together and how many "words", so that it would be easy to generate passwords like:

    service45\tree\chip**
    charming9$smirch

    These would make for stronger passwords that are also easier to remember.

  • superraw
    superraw
    Community Member

    I see no reason why the generate password tool should generate a new entry. Generate a password, submit it in the web form, and either have 1P save as a new entry OR update existing entry. It worked so well before and now is a mess.

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @superraw - to be clear for anyone else reading this thread, the behavior in 1Password 7 for Mac is how it has always worked -- it's just more evident to users now. The only exception to this is if you're actually clicking an existing password in a Login item, and changing it there -- in which case, the new password supplants the previous one, and the "Password History" section lower down in the Login item is updated appropriately. But if you're generating a new password outside of an existing item, this has always been the case.

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    Welcome to the forum, @RobH, and apologies for not answering this sooner -- I think this must have occurred on a busy day and fallen off the first page before anyone had a chance to get to it. I definitely understand your wish, but I just don't think that's likely to happen. I don't deny it can be frustrating or confusing for users who have a bulk of generated passwords to go through and wonder about. But I'd rather answer 100 emails from users who are frustrated or confused about saved password items they don't recognize, then a single one from a user who trusted 1Password to save his/her data -- especially generated passwords -- and who thought that was what was happening, only to discover the password they'd generated was only copied but not saved...and they've now lost access to a potentially critical account/data. If we generate a password, it WILL be saved, one way or the other -- at least for now.

    Where you can select how many numbers and symbols appear together and how many "words"

    In 1Password 7 for Mac, the options for generated passwords are behind the "More Options" drop-down in the password generator in 1Password mini:

    Checkboxes for numbers and symbols can be found here:

    To choose the memorable wordlist generator, set the drop-down to "Memorable," and you'll see the slider for how many words:

    I'd like to see a combination of Memorable and Random generation.

    This option doesn't exist currently, but I'll mention your request to the development team; we're always looking to enhance the generator's strength and usefulness while preserving ease-of-use. In the meantime, you can also always click into any generated password directly and enter whatever additional characters you wish, to suit your taste or specific website requirements. Hope that helps. :)

This discussion has been closed.