Best approach for multiple email addresses in identities?

Hi,

I have multiple email addresses (work, private, etc.). I also have a single identity entry for me in my 1Password. I tried adding all my email addresses to it, which wasn't a problem. However, when filling out fields in the browser, 1P does not offer me to choose which one to fill. It always uses the first email address that was put into the identity.

What's the best approach here? Create multiple identities, each one with the same info but different email addresses? Seems a bit much...

Thanks


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Comments

  • Hello @cryptochrome,

    Unfortunately yes, it will require an Identity item, one per email address. I haven't tested but what you could do is set up one Identity item with your physical address and then separate items, one per commonly used email address. It would make fill a two stage process so you may find duplicating the other details is quicker in the long run.

  • cryptochrome
    cryptochrome
    Community Member

    Thank you @littlebobbytables - I will give this a shot. No big deal!

    Maybe something for a future update ;)

  • Hello @cryptochrome,

    So I would be curious to learn a bit more about your use case, just to make sure I understand what you're hoping for. You have a small set of email addresses and at a guess one physical address? Is it for placing orders, so a site/page you need to fill on some sort of regular basis and maybe also need to alternate between two addresses or is it more registration pages, so various sites and typically a one-off fill?

  • cryptochrome
    cryptochrome
    Community Member

    Hey @littlebobbytables,

    the use case is actually fairly simple. I have multiple email addresses that I frequently need to fill in on web pages. Work, personal, project email etc. - I am a single entity of course, so logic says I should have a single identity in 1Password. And whenever it needs to fill an email address on a webpage, it should give me a popup that would let me select which of the email addresses stored in my 1P identity to fill.

    That doesn't work.

    So the workaround now is to create multiple identities in 1P, one for each email address that I have. That works. But is not very logical.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    I am a single entity of course, so logic says I should have a single identity in 1Password

    @cryptochrome: I disagree, and I think most folks using 1Password in different (work, personal) contexts would as well. Identities aren't meant to be per-person, otherwise this wouldn't be a whole item category in 1Password. Instead, it's intentionally open-ended so that we can have different Identities for filling relevant information depending on the context.

    For example, I've got Identities for things like my address depending on which country I'm in, but also some which are only slightly different for use in situations where I want to give less personal information — like my Identity for filling website signup forms, which uses a different, spam-friendly email address and a Google Voice phone number so I'm not getting calls on my personal phone at all hours of the day or night.

    So while I can see how it might be less convenient for your particular use case, if the only thing you're changing is an email address, I think it's the definition of "logical": each one can include (or not) only the information you want it to. And if you're only making minor changes for each new Identity, it's easy to right-click and Duplicate as a starting point. Cheers! :)

  • cryptochrome
    cryptochrome
    Community Member

    I think it's pretty much semantics :) Whether you store different shipping addresses, email addresses, phone numbers etc. into a single identity or whether you create multiple identities for them - as long as 1P lets me choose which one I want to fill, it all amounts to the same. All good.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @cryptochrome: Haha I don't disagree with you. :) Perhaps we will find a cool new way of presenting it in the future that will help make it easier to fill. ;)

  • peterdeep
    peterdeep
    Community Member
    edited October 2018

    @brenty I could not disagree more. I am moving from Dashlane to 1Password at this minute and the limitation of only be able to choose one email address and one physical address per identity could be a deal breaker -- because I also have multiple addresses. From what I am reading, 1 Password will not allow me to choose different emails, addresses and phone numbers at will on a web form, that each one is tied to an identity. Maybe I'm not the normal user, but I use multiple email addresses, several in fact -- two different work emails, an Apple one, a Google one, and a throwaway, and multiple physical addresses as well. In the US alone I have a two regular and one shipping address, add another physical address plus a shipping address for Mexico and another for Italy. I use bank and credit cards from all of these countries and the emails used vary from bank to bank. I won't even get into the different telephone numbers. So what am I to do? If I create six different identities, each one with a different physical address, how do I then choose which email address goes with each one when no email address is tied to only one physical address? Do I need to create 30 identities (typing the same information over and over) so that each of the 6 physical addresses can correspond to one each of the five email addresses? This seems unwieldy to say the least, and thoroughly confusing. Am I the only person with more than one email address? Doesn't anyone else have a separate shipping address or PO Box, or a second home?

    When making a purchase, Dashlane enters the appropriate billing address and telephone number information based upon which credit card I use. I don't see anywhere to associate a particular address with each credit card. This seems very logical to me.

    It took me a while to realize I could enter more than one email address in a field, but to do so I have to double click on one of the other items (like ICQ) to physically change the name, then choose "email" from the side drop down. And here I learn that the app won't recognize that new email in a web browser anyway, making the whole process useless. In the meantime, I can indicate my AIM or MSN names - which don't exist any longer, or my ICQ address, if that's even still a thing. When was the last time this app was updated? 1990? Sorry for the rant, but I am a new user and you are a developer and I've just insulted the crap out of you, so sorry for that, but I'd think you'd want to hear the opinions of a new user.

    Am I not understanding how to use 1Password? Granted I am new to this app but it seems overly confusing, and I'm not usually one to be daunted by technology.

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    Greetings @peterdeep,

    If an Identity item contained only an email address that is the only field it would try to fill and similarly for Identity addresses with just a physical address. That way you could fill the physical address first with one Identity item and then the email address with another. What made sense for certain data formats and types when 1Password was first conceived has changed but as can often be the case, depending on how certain decisions were made it can potentially make future changes range anywhere from easy to near on impossible without breaking compatibility. Several of the template fields in an Identity item do no longer make sense and workflows have changed considerably (go back a number of years and the idea of multiple email addresses would have been very uncommon).

    We are looking at ways of augmenting existing item types to make them more powerful but that is future development yet to happen. For now maybe separate items for physical addresses and email addresses will allow you to combine as needed.

  • TrendyTim
    TrendyTim
    Community Member

    This is my biggest gripe with 1password, Coming from dashlane this is a real let down.

    I have my issues with dashlane's browser extension around responsiveness, and form field detection, it bugs me so much that i am considering moving to 1pass despite still having 6.5 years free dashlane pro left from referrals. I am only 1 day into really trying to use 1pass so time will tell if this is a show stopper (although lack of emergency support like dashlane is also up there, but the biggest issue there is how do you give access to someone after a resettable timeframe without opening a security hole, i dont have a clue, but i digress)

    The way dashlane handles multiple contact info is very nice. There is

    Names (identity)
    Emails (i have 4 in there, 3 marked as personal, 1 as work)
    Addresses (i have 3 in there)
    Phones (i have 3)
    Payments (cards, but also takes paypal and bank details there too, and i can link the billing address for a card to an address i have added)

    I haven't tried it with multiple names but for me, i fill in forms by

    Selecting the name (identity) from the dropdown, fills in names, default phone , default email and default address
    I can then chose a different phone by clicking in the field and selecting a different one from the dropdown list (same for email and address)

    Whilst i find that perfectly acceptable (and possibly preferable) another option could be allow adding addresses, emails and phones as separate items, and via the linking functionality (would let you link different people to the same address but it would be fine to just be able to add more address blocks, email and phone blocks to a person instead), if more emails or addresses are linked (or multiple added), almost the same behaviour as now but have a dropdown or optional popup menu set to defaults with easy option to change) and allowing contextual changing of that like i can with dashlane clicking in the email/phone/address field to pick a different one would be super as well.

    If people want 2 or 12 or 20 "Identities" for each phone, email, address combo they could still do it but for people who would rather do an extra click to select their auto fill data instead duplicate lots of data and scroll though a large list every time and everyone wins, and if people don't configure it as the 'new' way they don't see any change so they are not disturbed.

    The root of the issue is 1password lumps contact details with identity, my email address, mail address and phone are not my identity (a site may use my email as identity but thats part of logins, not identity).

    As a developer myself i know how one has to juggle feature benefit vs effect on ease of use vs amount of work to implement vs other features, and how decisions early on can make stuff very hard to do in future. I'd like to think that allowing contact info as a top level
    data type and then using the linking feature would be relatively simple approach, even with the obvious enhancements to the linking process)

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @TrendyTim: It doesn't come up often at all, so we're going to need to prioritize other work that benefits more people above something like this, but I agree that there's room for improvement in this area. I am not at all excited by the idea of having to fiddle with menus any time I want to fill this kind of information (dropdown for email addresses? ick). So in general I do like the approach of having a single Identity item for a set purpose to fill with a single click...but I agree 100% that more flexibility would be nice, as what we have now is pretty rigid. It would really help to have a concrete example though. If you have one, please share it. It's hard to come up with something actionable based on abstracts and hypotheticals. And heck, maybe there's even something I could suggest that would help you now. But either way, thanks for checking out 1Password! :)

    And FYI:

    The root of the issue is 1password lumps contact details with identity, my email address, mail address and phone are not my identity (a site may use my email as identity but thats part of logins, not identity).

    You can not use those fields at all if you don't want to. Everything there is entirely optional. 1Password won't complain if you leave some fields you don't want filled empty. :)

  • TrendyTim
    TrendyTim
    Community Member

    @brenty
    I am very surprised it doesn't come up more, because i see 1password as more aimed at the more technical (its templates are are not cut and dry like other are), there are plenty that are more user friendly (and that do have an acceptable support for this modality), but the technical are more likely to be in want of the feature.

    To each there own, i avoided 1password for years because i have an intense dislike for mac styles (but in want of a family package and the UI on other providers that offer that are even worse im giving it a go despite the price). I mention drop downs as a general idea for making the Identity more interactive, the ability to select a non default contact info from within the tile. As i mentioned i like the way dashlane does it so i can cherry pick as i go through the form (one should always verify what is auto filled), hell id settle for a clunky UI like

    (Name) - (Menu Selector) -> Contact Item
    |------------------------------------
    | NAME 1 - Address | -> Address 1
    | | Address 2
    | Address 3
    | - Phone | -> Phone 1
    | | Phone2
    | - Email | -> Email 1
    | | Email 2

    Email 3

    or with dropdown boxes

    Over a list that looked like

    Name 1 - Address 1 Name - Email 1
    Name 1 - Address 2 Name - Email 1
    Name 1 - Address 3 Name - Email 1
    Name 1 - Address 1 Name - Email 2
    Name 1 - Address 2 Name - Email 2
    Name 1 - Address 3 Name - Email 2
    Name 1 - Address 1 Name - Email 3
    Name 1 - Address 2 Name - Email 3
    Name 1 - Address 3 Name - Email 3
    Name 1 - Address 1 Name - Email 4
    Name 1 - Address 2 Name - Email 4
    Name 1 - Address 3 Name - Email 4

    Name 2 - Address 1 Name - Email 1
    Name 2 - Address 2 Name - Email 1
    Name 2 - Address 1 Name- Email 2
    Name 2 - Address 2 Name - Email 2

    (if i add my wife as well, so she don't have to switch user accounts to auto fill her details)

    No to mention keeping it all in sync.

    I'm sure if you guys put more than the 5minutes of thought i put into it you could come up with something good.

    You can not use those fields at all if you don't want to. Everything there is entirely optional. 1Password won't complain if you leave some fields you don't want filled empty. :)

    Obviously (after all 99% of the fields are useless like ICQ, MSN), but not filling in phone and address and email just makes 1pass even more useless as an auto filler so how would that help ?

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    I am very surprised it doesn't come up more, because i see 1password as more aimed at the more technical (its templates are are not cut and dry like other are), there are plenty that are more user friendly (and that do have an acceptable support for this modality), but the technical are more likely to be in want of the feature.

    @TrendyTim: You're right that over a decade ago 1Password was really only something people who perhaps self-identify as "geeks" used, but that was a long time ago. Nowadays security breaches are talked about on local news channels even. Everyone deserves security, not just "the technical"; and more and more people all the time are deciding to take control of that online.

    Obviously (after all 99% of the fields are useless like ICQ, MSN), but not filling in phone and address and email just makes 1pass even more useless as an auto filler so how would that help ?

    I don't know what you're asking. It sounded like you were complaining that "1password lumps contact details with identity", so I mentioned that you can leave out some or all of those details from any given item if you want to. You could have an Identity item that only includes home address info, for example.

    Anyway, thank you for elaborating a bit on what you're looking for. We do not have immediate plans to redo data and structures and UI across all of the apps for changes in this area, but we've intentionally made the new filling Brain much more powerful under the hood so we can do more interesting things with saving and filling in the future if we can find a good way of presenting it that's not only useful but usable by everyone who depends on 1Password. There are benefits to the simplicity of what we have now, but if we can build on that in a way that is still useful to millions of our customers everybody wins. :chuffed:

    If you do think of a specific example use case, just let us know the URL and other details and we can take a look and evaluate it as we continue to develop 1Password going forward. Cheers! :)

  • bitfiddler
    bitfiddler
    Community Member

    I'm not sure how much work this would be, perhaps your devs can be crafty with the UI to make it appear as I describe below but under the covers you could still re-use most of what you already have in place.

    So currently I am doing something like this with my identities:
    My Info
    Spam Info
    Email - Home
    Email - Work
    Email - Spam 1
    Email - Spam 2
    Email - Parents
    Address - Home
    Address - Work
    Address - Cabin
    Address - Parents
    Address - Dummy
    Phone - Mobile
    Phone - Home
    Phone - Work
    Phone - Dummy
    Phone - Dads Mobile

    In each identity I leave everything blank other than the fields specific to the identity name. So 'My Info' has name, age, sex etc... and nothing else. Email - Home literally has one field with my home email in it filled in. I frequently buy stuff online on behalf of my parents since using their credit card on the internet scares them, so that's where the non-personal email/address/phone comes in.

    This hack lets me compose the details I need for any given form without having a million identities for every permutation of these data pieces.

    However, it would be nice if there was a concept like 'Identity Profile', where I could create a few commonly used combos:
    Work Profile:
    My Info + Work Address + Work Phone + Work Email

    Personal Profile:
    My Info + Home Address + Mobile Phone + Home Email

    Spam Profile:
    Spam Info + Address Dummy + Phone Dummy + Email Spam 1

    Shopping Profile:
    My Info + Parents Address + Mobile Phone + Email Parents

    So this way, 80 % of the time I would use one of the profiles and for the edge cases I can select one of the fast-fill options. Also, if I change my main email, or my work phone, I can change it in one place and since all the profiles reference the identity (and don't store a copy) all the profiles get the latest value.

    This way, you can introduce a new 'feature' that essentially layers on top of the existing Identity functionality. Now the name 'Identity Profile' might not be what you go with, but I had to call it something.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @bitfiddler: Very interesting. Thanks for sharing! I hadn't imagined taking what I mentioned above that far, but I'm glad to hear you've found a workflow that helps your use case. Perhaps we can do something more in this area in the future. Cheers! :)

  • stancornett
    stancornett
    Community Member

    Possible use case for additional addresses, contact info: To thwart "porch and mailbox pirates" I'm in the habit of maintaining a box at the nearest UPS store primarily to receive packages. Many (maybe most) commercial web forms provide for a billing and a shipping (mailing) address. That means a fair amount of keyboarding for each new vendor I want to use. A password manager that could fill both would be a tremendous help to me! I live alone and absolutely do not want packages delivered to my porch to attract thieves. Rashes of "porch pirates" and even a few mailbox thieves happen around here a few times a year.

    I have no idea how many others might find a residence (billing) and a shipping (mailing) address helpful in this or a similar way. But, I offer it as a use case that might have broad appeal.

    I'm new to 1Password and haven't found a way to do this yet. If current data structures can handle this I'd be very appreciative of learning how to set it up.

  • ag_yaron
    ag_yaron
    1Password Alumni

    Hey @stancornett ,
    You can create an additional identity item in your 1Password and name it "Shipping address", then use that identity to autofill the shipping address section. Your original identity item will have your billing address, and you will be able to use it initially in the billing address section.

    Granted, you will have to autofill twice (once for the billing and nother for the shipping), but it is faster than manually writing these details :)

This discussion has been closed.