What are Categories used for ???

JosieNurseTN

I think perhaps re-framing how you are thinking about 1Password might help.

Your account contains one or more vaults, each vault has specific permissions.

A vault is a single record storage container where you store a 1Password record (like a filing box where you store a paper document).

A category is an empty record with predefined fields (like an unfilled paper form that you'd fill in). Some categories are special. All records belong to one single category, period, and the category is selected and fixed when you create the record.

A tag is simply a way to mark a record for easier discover for you (like a colored sticky note on a document in your filing box).

When you create a new record, you select the category. You can pick the one most useful to you.

But as mentioned above, there are a few special purpose categories: Login, Credit Card, and Identity. These are special because they are used for web-page form-filling to help simplify entering the data these contain (e.g. login information, credit card data, and identity information - this type of data entry is common for web sites).

All the other categories are simply data holders, with predefined placeholder labels / fields. Many of these are largely historic, in that's the way password managers were designed 10 to 15 years ago. Predefined categories are common in the password manager space, and some password managers allow you to customize their stock categories. But in the end, they are nothing more than predefined data placeholders that you use when you create a new record (to put in some vault, perhaps with one or more tags).

1Password does not decide for you which category to use (with the exception of Login records, which the browser extension may offer to create when you fill in a website, if the URL doesn't already exist in some Login record, or Passwords if you generate a password). You select a category when you create a record.

You might decide to just use Secure Notes for everything, customizing the record with the sections and fields that you want. It's entirely up to you.

You don't need to show Categories in the sidebar. That's there for your convenience (e.g. if you want to quickly show a list of only your Secure Notes). Think of this those sidebar items as filters - they select what data is presented to you in the list to the right of the sidebar.

Hopefully this helps.