Sort All Your Passwords By Strength In Mac App, 1Password [OS X Tips]

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1password

The excellent Mac app 1Password is a cross-platform password management app which makes it easy to have unique strong passwords for every site you visit, as well as keeping all your private bits of data secure and available to only you. While you’d think a single app that holds all your sensitive data would be a point of weakness, AgileBits has proven its app to be super secure, even against hackers with malicious intent.

When you use the app to create or store passwords, though, you might want to be sure that you don’t reuse a password you’ve already used on a different site: it’s more secure if you don’t. You also want to make sure that all of your passwords are strong ones. How can you know that, though, with a long list of them? It’s simple, really: just sort by password strength.

Launch 1Password and click on the Traditional layout button to see all your stuff listed in column view. You can also just head up to the View menu and choose Layout, Traditional. You’ll also have to make sure that the Password Strength column is enabled by choosing Password Strength from the Columns option in the View menu, as well.

Now click the Password Strength column header to sort the logins by their relative strength. Now you’ll be able to see which of your passwords are the weakest, and you can change them right away.

Smart_Folder_Password_Strength

Now, if you have a lot of weak passwords you want to change, you might want to list them separately while you make new, stronger ones. You can do this with a Smart Folder. Simply click on New Smart Folder in the File menu, and a search dialog will show up. Set the search criteria to Everywhere and Everything. Then set the drop down menus below that to the following:

  • All of the following are true:
  • Password Strength
  • is less than or equal to
  • Try 40 at first, and then 20 if there are too many listed at 40

Click on Save, then title your search with something like, “To Be Updated.” When you generate newer, stronger passwords (use 1Password’s generator if you like), they’ll disappear from the list because their strength will have gone up.

Source: agilebits

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