What is the key to editing the database in CSV for import/overwrite? How do I know which password in a single entry goes with which user ID??
I tried cleaning up years of Codebook use by exporting my Codebook as a CSV, and editing it.
Unfortunately, I find that I cannot make sense of entries which have multiple passwords and multiple user IDs.
e.g.- I often use a single entry for our entire family, such as: “X-Box” with multiple users and passwords. But, if the sequence of user IDs and passwords becomes corrupted, all passwords are mixed up.
Also, when using automatic Codebook through iOS autofill, it does not offer a choice of passwords but just chooses the first one.
Thanks for your support of Codebook and for posting to the discussion forum. I’ll be happy to help.
There currently is no ordering to fields within an Entry when exporting and importing a CSV in Codebook. Because of this, we don’t recommend using it for batch editing. The typical use case for export/import is to transition to and from other password managers. We have considered other options to maintain field ordering within the export/import options, but have deferred it for the time being.
Our recommendation would be to do any cleaning up or editing of data within the Codebook interface itself.
That is correct. Password AutoFill uses the first username/email + password it locates on the Entry to fill. There’s some additional information about how that is chosen on this documentation page: Codebook Help - Troubleshooting iOS AutoFill
Our recommendation there would be to split the Entry with multiple login credentials into two separate entries if you’d like to use them both for AutoFilling.
Thank you for the answers! Because there is not a specific protocol for ordering multiples within a single entry, AND because CSV export is currently my only way to edit the database, you recommend that users not create multiple instances of a specific label within one entry? e.g.- instead use separate entries, like “X-box Jim” “X-box Pedro” “X-box Mary”?
Typically this is what we’d recommend. This way there is no ambiguity as far as which login credentials belong to which account and you’re not relying on the field ordering. This has the additional benefit of “picking the right credentials” when selecting the Entry for Password AutoFill.
There are definitely use cases for creating multiple instances of a specific label within one entry – for example multiple Note Fields, or multiple websites that the login is valid/associated with. Additionally field ordering is typically maintained within standard Codebook operation with the exception of CSV import/export (as mentioned).
Why is CSV your only way of editing the database? Has your trial expired and you’re in read-only mode?
Thank you. helpful to get confirmation on that. I am on a full paid version.
-regarding CSV export as the only way for me to edit: yes, of course, I do edit entries in Codebook, however, because I cannot search labels, I cannot efficiently edit corrupted or wrong label uses. The search tool within Codebook only searches the content of entries, not the category, label, photo, attachment, file extension, etc.
Also, for some unknown reason, over the years, I have experienced labels corrupting and becoming blank every once in a while (currently about 5% of my labels have been corrupted to blank).
Typically a field missing a label could be caused by the label being deleted on one device and then a new Field using the previously deleted label being added on another device.
In conjunction with that, Codebook Integrity Check: Codebook Help - Integrity Check can identify Fields missing labels and rename them to Unknown so that you can search them using Search Scopes.
Let me know if this information is helpful and if there’s anything else I can do to assist. Thanks!