Categories in dropdown

Hi 1P_PeterG , thank you very much for taling the time to explain this in such detail.

Hi andx1pw, we appreciate this feedback. The role of categories - how it should work, where it should be - is one that generates plenty of discussion here on the forums!

While some of this has been discussed before, I can tell you that Categories moved to a drop-down menu partly to make more economical use of the left-side sidebar, and to create greater consistency in the types of elements a user can expect to find there.

As roustem noted:

The sidebar in 1Password 7 has problems. It is overloaded, it does too much. There are two different states that present different information (vaults vs categories) and this is confusing, especially to new users. Even I got lost a quite a few times trying to use the sidebar.

Collections are meant to have a different function than categories. Categories relates to what kind of item an item is - for example, sometimes its handy to summon all the Bank Account items at once.

Collections is more about creating groups of vaults that you can use for a given purpose (or excluding vaults you that you want to ensure don't get involved). For example, someone might have a couple of work-related accounts that have a lot of power, and they want to ensure that they're not interacting with those when they're doing more mundane tasks. You could create a group of vaults (a Collection) that exclude those sensitive things, and that way you know you are only working with the items you want to be on a day-to-day basis.

I hope this is informative - let me know what you think! We're always open to improvements, and these recent changes are part of that; an effort to make the whole 1Password experience easier, more useful, and more elegant. We'll look forward to your perspective. 👍