I’ve been using KeePass for about a year but I only recently figured out the nuance of how Auto-Type-Window interacts with the entry title.

If you don’t use KeePass this won’t make any sense, but I hope it will be of use to any KeePass users who were similarly confused.

By default, KeePass (as of version 1.15) checks all entry titles when you hit Ctrl-Alt-A (or whatever shortcut you’re using to invoke Auto-Type). That’s very useful because an aptly-named title works without any customization. However, adding an Auto-Type-Window entry to the notes field disables title matching. This is especially annoying if you’re adding a Window Title to be used in addition to the title (which is usually the case in my experience).

An example may help explain what I mean.

Let’s say a web site login page is called “Foobar Login” and you have a KeePass entry called Foobar. Auto-Type works fine when you hit Ctrl-Alt-A in the window and all is well.

Then you find an alternate login page titled, “Welcome Valued Customer.” Adding “Auto-Type-Window: Welcome Valued Customer*” to the notes field makes Ctrl-Alt-A work on the second page, but it breaks it on the original page. Remember, the title is ignored if you have an Auto-Type-Window entry. You can’t have alternate window entries that work in combination with the entry title. You can either use the title or Auto-Type-Window entries.

In our example, you’d add this to the notes field.

Auto-Type-Window: Foobar Login*
Auto-Type-Window: Welcome Valued Customer*

My confusion stemmed from an expectation that title matching would continue to work when adding a new Auto-Type-Window entry. Additionally, I thought to have multiple entries required you to add -1, -2, -3 after each one, but you only have to add the numbers if you’re creating different Auto-Type behavior. You’d also have to create corresponding Auto-Type-1, -2, -3 entries with that new behavior.