pass meta

An extension for the pass password store that allows retrieval of values for specific properties from the meta data stored in a password file.

password store proposes a format to store meta data in the password file. The password is stored in the first line followed by data like the URL, username and other meta data in the following lines.

A password file might look like this (this is a slightly silly example, but it will allow us to explain the functionality of this extension):

Yw|ZSNH!}z"6{ym9pI
URL: *.amazon.com/*
Username: AmazonianChicken@example.co
url: https://amazon.com/someotherurl
notes: Buy milk

A common use case is to copy the first line, the password, using pass show -c <password file>. The meta data usually cannot be copied but needs to be displayed as it contains type and value.

pass meta

pass meta <password file> Username searches the meta data (the whole file except the first line) for a line starting with 'Username:', and prints the corresponding value:

AmazonianChicken@example.com

Similarly, we can pass any property we like:

pass meta <password file> notes

Buy milk

If the property is not found, the command returns nothing.

But if you don't specify a property to search for, a list of all the property names is given:

pass meta <password file>

URL
Username
url
notes

Copy to clipboard

Instead of showing the value, you can also have it copied to the clipboard by specifying the -c option:

pass meta -c <password file> notes will copy the value of the "notes" property to the clipboard.

Finding usernames

Passing the option -u will return any properties with the names user, username or login. By default this is case-insensitive, so it will also find Username, for example.

pass meta -cu <password file> will find the (first) username and copy it to the clipboard.

Finding urls

Passing the option -U will return any properties with the name url or http. By default this is case-insensitive, so it will also find URL, for example.

pass meta -cU <password file> will find the first URL and copy it to the clipboard.

Finding all matches

By default, pass meta only prints the first matching property. If you want to see all matches, pass -a. This will print all matches. For example, to print all url fields:

pass meta -aU <password file>

*.amazon.com/*
https://amazon.com/someotherurl

Complex searches

The search term you pass is used by the script as a (part of a) Perl regular expression. This means that you can do quite powerful things, like searching for multiple words:

pass meta -a <password file> 'user|notes'

AmazonianChicken@example.com
Buy milk

Or to match any properties with names not starting with the letter u:

pass meta -a <password file> '^[^u]'

Buy milk

Note that in the example above we have to pass the -a option, because the normal behaviour would be to return only the first matching line, and we wouldn't see the notes.

Some more technical notes: before the search term is used as a regular expression, any whitespace is removed from the start of the line. The regular expression will only match the content of the line up to the first colon (:).

Case Insensitivity

By default, the pass meta command treats property names in a case insensitive way. That means that pass meta <password file> AnswerToASecretQuestion and pass meta <password file> answertoasecretquestion will give the same result. If you need case sensitive matching, pass the -C option:

pass meta -C <password file> url

https://amazon.com/someotherurl

Installation

• Enable password-store extensions by setting PASSWORD_STORE_ENABLE_EXTENSIONS=true
• make install
• alternatively add meta.bash to your extension folder (by default at ~/.password-store/.extensions)

Completion

This extensions comes with the extension bash completion support added with password-store version 1.7.3

When installed, bash completion is already installed. Alternatively source completion/pass-meta.bash.completion

fish and zsh completion are not available, feel free to contribute.

Contribution

Contributions are always welcome.