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agaton's avatar
agaton
Occasional Contributor
4 years ago

Difference in password strength shown between Autofill and manual entry in 1Password

I am updating my passwords, which according to Watchtower are "Excellent" to "Fantastic".

There are sites where autofill is not working, so what I do is copy the generated password and update it in the 1Password windows app.

I notice that if the password is updated using Autofill in the browser extension, the password strength is shown as "Fantastic".

If I copy and manually update the password, the strength is shown as "Excellent".

Password (17 characters) using Autofill:

Password (19 characters) using manual entry:

Is there some secret magic sauce added when using Autofill?

1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: 2.3.3
OS Version: 8.7

browser extension

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  • agaton's avatar
    agaton
    Occasional Contributor
    4 years ago

    Jack_P_1P

    This is where I encounter the issue:

    Clicking Autofill will populate the New Password and Confirmed Password fields, but this popup will not appear.

    So I have to manually update the password in the app.

  • Jack_P_1P's avatar
    Jack_P_1P
    Icon for 1Password Team rank1Password Team
    4 years ago

    Hey agaton:

    Great question. In short, determining the strength of a password can only be accurately be performed if how the password was generated is known. When 1Password generates and fills a password, it saves some details about how the password was generated to some behind-the-scenes fields. 1Password can use those details to correctly display the strength of that password. If you copy that password and paste it into the password box in 1Password while editing, those behind-the-scenes fields aren't carried with it, so 1Password has to make some assumptions about how that password was generated.

    If you're running into trouble with 1Password autofilling on a page, you can always drag and drop your username and password from the 1Password pop up right into the field. This would allow you to generate your Login item in the 1Password desktop app, and then drag your password from 1Password in the browser right into the field. Let me know how you get on with that!

    Jack