I love 1Password, & we use it every single day at WebSanity. In particular, one of us will generate a password for a client’s site, export it (File > Export Selected > 1Password Interchange File…), Skype it to the others, & then we’ll import it into our 1Password databases.

And there lies the rub—to do the import, you have to use File > Import, every time. There’s no key command for Import, even though there are key commands for most others. Why the heck doesn’t the program have a key command for Import? It’s incredibly annoying1.

So today, I fixed this annoyance with the totally awesome & indispensable Keyboard Maestro. And it works perfectly. Here are the steps to follow:

Select File > New Macro Group.

Change Untitled Macro Group to 1Password.

Click on Available In All Applications to Available In The Following Applications.

Click on the green + & select 1Password.

Select File > New Macro.

Change Untitled Macro to Import 1pif Files.

Click the green + under Triggered By Any Of The Following & select Hot Key Trigger.

For the hot key, enter Command+O.

For the first Action, select Interface Control > Select A Menu Item.

For Menu Title, enter File, & for Menu Item, enter Import… (that’s an ellipses; to create it, press Alt+;).

For the second Action, select Execute > Execute An AppleScript.

For the text script, enter the following:

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "1Password"
        --- Click the Import Format dropdown in the Import Assistant window
        click pop up button 1 of group 1 of window 1
        --- Select the 1Password Interchange File menu item
        keystroke "1"
        --- Press Enter to activate the 1Password Interchange File menu item
        tell application "System Events"
            key code 36
        end tell
        --- Press the Continue button
        click button 1 of group 1 of window 1
    end tell
end tell

Select View > Edit to finish editing.

Now select 1Password & press Command+O to see your new Keyboard Maestro macro in action.

Here’s a screenshot of the actions:

Now, tell me again: why won’t Agile Bits, makers of 1Password, just assign a key command to the Import command so this isn’t necessary?

  1. What’s even more annoying is that you can’t use the Keyboard System Preferences to set a key command for Import. Oh, you can, but it won’t work. Here’s how you’d do that:

    1. System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts.
    2. Click on Application Shortcuts.
    3. Click on the + to open the sheet.
    4. For Application, select 1Password.
    5. For Menu Title, enter Import….
    6. For Keyboard Shortcut, press Command+O.
    7. Click on Add.
    8. Close System Preferences.

    Aaaand it totally doesn’t work. Why, I have no idea. It works for other apps (although I’ve found that it doesn’t work about 10% or so of the time), but not for 1Password. Hence my use of Keyboard Maestro, which does work, & is yet another reason to buy that amazing program. ↩