Thank you to AgileBits, the developer of 1Password, for sponsoring iPhone J.D. again this month. 1Password is one of those rare apps / services that is always at the top of my list when someone asks me for app recommendations. This is especially true for lawyers because we have a heightened responsibility to preserve confidential information.
Last month, I discussed the primary reasons that I am such a big fan of 1Password: (1) it gives you a convenient and safe place to store all of your passwords and can enter them for you automatically; (2) the app works great with two-factor authentication; (3) the app makes it easy to share passwords for their rare instance when you need to do so, and (4) the app gives you a secure place to store other information such as notes, documents, or photographs. But that's not all, and here are a few other features of the app that I really love.
Vaults
In 1Password you can create multiple vaults, each of which stores its own set of passwords, documents, and other secure information. You might want to use different vaults to distinguish passwords associated with a business from your personal passwords. I like vaults because you can have different sharing rights associated with each vault. I have my primary vault with most of my passwords, a vault that my wife and I share to store passwords that we may both want to use or modify (like utility companies, streaming video services, etc.), and a vault of passwords that my wife and I share with my son. I have 1Password configured so that by default I am seeing all vaults at once. I can move a password entry from my personal vault to another vault as a way of having the password automatically shared with another person, but I still see the entry because of my default view to see them all at once.
Tags
You can create a Tags field for any entry (a password, a note, etc.) and type any word to create a tag, or type the name of a tag that you used before. One of the four buttons at the bottom of the 1Password iPhone app is called Tags. Tap that button to see every tag you are using, and tap any tag to see all of the entries associated with that tag.
Sometimes I use tags for a person. For example, sometimes my mother shares a password with me so that I can help her with something on her computer. I store these in 1Password in case I need to help her again, and I tag all of them with my mother's name so that with one tap I can see the 10 or so passwords I have associated with my mother. I also have other types of tags such as a Hotel tag that has all of my different hotel rewards entries.
1Password also uses tags to share entries with the 1Password Apple Watch app. I only have a few items with the Apple Watch tag, but those items are always available on my Apple Watch.
Favorites
The very first button at the bottom of 1Password shows those entries that you have starred as being a favorite. For example, I often need to look at my primary credit card information, my Apple iCloud password, and a few of my confidential notes. I can just tap the favorites button and see those items without having to search for them.
Also, at the top of favorites, 1Password shows me the last three items that I used. (You can adjust this number in the settings under General.) If I know I used an item recently and I need it again, it is faster to just jump to my favorites without doing a search for the item.
Format your notes
About a year ago, 1Password added the ability to use Markdown to format your notes. For example, if you type ##Sample## in a note then 1Password will display that word in bold: Sample. I wrote about this feature when it came out a year ago, and I've used it in most of my notes to make them look better.
Last year, my only complaint was that the font size was a little small. 1Password fixed that problem, so now everything is larger easier to see. For example, in my post from last year, I mentioned a note that I created to keep track of James Bond movies that I've been watching with my kids. I made a list of the ones that I wanted to see with them (omitting the movies in the franchise that are not quite as good) and I add a thumbs up emoji to each entry as we watch them. In my post from last year you can see that the font size for this list is pretty small, but the current version is larger and much easier to read:
Conclusion
If you are a lawyer and you are not currently using a password manager, I honestly don't understand how you are not driving yourself crazy. You really should be using a password manager. When you first purchase a subscription to 1Password, it is going to take you a little while to enter all of your usernames and passwords, create secure notes, etc. But once you are up and running, you will quickly see the value. 1Password automatically enters your passwords on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and PC, creates complex passwords, acts as a central place to store all of your password, and has so many other useful features.
If you are not yet using 1Password, AgileBits is offering iPhone J.D. readers a $100 credit when you click here and sign up for the business plan. Try out 1Password to see what you think, but I strongly suspect that once you start using the app, it will be one of those rare apps that you use every day.
