Switching from Google Passports to 1Password

Discussing Google Passports¶

I have always been using the built-in password manager in Chrome (which is the Google Passwords service) to manage my passwords. After Android Oreo, Google can also serve as the system's Auto Fill tool to help fill in passwords. It basically meets most of my needs and it's free, so I never bothered to switch.

However, there were quite a few minor issues with Google Passports that have been bothering me for a long time:

• Unable to manage passwords effectively

  Google Passports can only manage passwords through the built-in "Saved Passwords" page in Chrome. Even though there is a dedicated domain passwords.google.com, it does not provide web-based management functionality. Even on Chrome, you can only view or delete passwords, but cannot create passwords.

• Data synchronization is too slow

  The data synchronization between Chrome on the mobile phone and Chrome on the computer is too slow. When one side updates or adds a password, the other side often cannot use that set of passwords immediately.

Give 1Password a try.¶

So recently, with a try-it-out attitude, I gave 1Password a shot (actually, I had tried LastPass before, but I was discouraged due to its not-so-friendly user experience).

In addition to perfectly solving the pain points of using Google Passwords, there are also a few points that pleasantly surprised me:

• Can manage two-step verification keys

  I used to struggle with the fact that Google/Microsoft's Authenticator couldn't sync with the cloud, which caused quite a bit of trouble when changing phones. Now, with 1Password, I can perfectly sync with the cloud. Moreover, when logging into some websites, 1Password will intelligently auto-fill the two-step verification code.

• Family groups can share passwords
• Can detect duplicate or dangerous passwords
• In addition to passwords, you can also save some other types of documents, such as server keys and credit card information

Overall, I am very satisfied with the features of 1Password, and it's worth paying for.

Deleting old passwords¶

Since the passwords have been migrated to 1Password, it makes no sense to keep the old passwords in Chrome. On one hand, it's not secure; on the other hand, Chrome will still pop up password prompts in the password input box, which conflicts with 1Password.

However, a problem arose. Chrome only provides the option to clear passwords in "Clear Browsing Data", but this operation only clears local passwords and does not clear passwords in the cloud. After clearing, they will be synced down again after a while. Apart from deleting passwords one by one, there is no other way to clear cloud passwords, which is really annoying.

No choice, so I had to delete them one by one, but I plan to use a script to reduce repetitive labor. I found a tool on github, cliclick, which, as the name suggests, simulates click operations in the CLI.

# 使用 Homebrew 就可以安装
brew install cliclick 

Then you just need to write a script.

#!/bin/bash

# 调试的时候不要把循环上限设得太高
# 因为脚本执行期间无法使用鼠标，键盘的焦点也会离开终端，即使有问题也无法进行终止
# 我就因为一开始写成 while true 了导致不得不重启电脑
for i in {1..10} 
do
		# 两个屏幕像素坐标取决于屏幕分辨率+窗口位置，请自行调试
    cliclick m:1385,620 # 密码项右侧的菜单按钮位置
    sleep 0.1 # 因为有动画，所以需要等待，以防误操作
    cliclick m:1382,650 # 弹出菜单的「删除密码」位置
    sleep 0.1
done

Finally finished deleting all the passwords~