A few questions from a 1Password for Families newbie...

Jesse3Names

Hi, my dad and I have been trying to figure out a few different features and would love some help:

1. If I am the manager of a family plan with my mom, dad, and fiancé, can my mom and dad share a vault not accessible by me or my fiancé?
2. My dad, like me, has used 1Password without a subscription for a few years. Can he still manually sync a vault between two computers via USB thumb drive while on my family plan? He doesn't want the info in that vault stored in the cloud.
3. My mom and dad's main vault is synced via Dropbox now. When they create a 1Password.com account for each of them, will they be able to import this vault into each of their accounts? Will it remain stored and synced via Dropbox or migrate elsewhere?
4. We all get one private vault to start, but can create additional private vaults on our accounts as we see fit, right?

Thanks!
Jesse

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1Password Version: 7.3.2
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: 10.15.1
Sync Type: iCloud & Dropbox
Referrer: forum-search:share vault family

williakz

Great questions! As a fellow newbie to 1P for Families, I'll be very interested in both Support's answers and your parents' reactions to the prospect. I haven' t yet broached the whole 1P concept to my oldsters. I'm still working on setting up and fully integrating the software for me and my wife before I even consider inviting other, more remote family members to the 1Password party. After all, I'm the lucky guy who gets to support whatever contraption I end up saddling them with. Good luck with your project.

Ben

Hi @Jesse3Names

I'd be happy to help with those questions.

If I am the manager of a family plan with my mom, dad, and fiancé, can my mom and dad share a vault not accessible by me or my fiancé?

Family Organizers do not by default have access to vaults that aren't directly shared with them, but they can add themselves if they desire. As such there is a level of trust family members have to place in organizers.

My dad, like me, has used 1Password without a subscription for a few years. Can he still manually sync a vault between two computers via USB thumb drive while on my family plan? He doesn't want the info in that vault stored in the cloud.

1Password Families can only sync via 1Password.com. What is his concern? This guide may help:

About the 1Password security model

If anyone is interested in technical details, we also have a security design white paper:

1Password Security Design White Paper

My mom and dad's main vault is synced via Dropbox now. When they create a 1Password.com account for each of them, will they be able to import this vault into each of their accounts? Will it remain stored and synced via Dropbox or migrate elsewhere?

For what it's worth, we don't support sharing 1Password data via Dropbox. The only supported method of sharing 1Password data between users is via 1Password.com. All 1Password Families vaults are synced via 1Password.com. They would be able to migrate this vault to 1Password Families, and then share it between them.

We all get one private vault to start, but can create additional private vaults on our accounts as we see fit, right?

Each account gets one "Private" vault, which nobody else can even see exists. All other vaults that are created are technically "shared" vaults, even if they are only accessible to one person.

I hope that helps. Should you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to ask.

Ben

Jesse3Names

Hi Ben,

Thank you so much for your help. I used to use iCloud to sync my main vault while my parents used Dropbox to sync theirs. As I said, we have been using 1Password for a few years without 1Password.com accounts. My dad does not want to store his secondary vault because it contains their financial information. I do not have the same level of security concerns, but I know it is important to him. He has been syncing it between his computers with a thumb drive, as I mentioned. So there is no way for him to continue to manually transfer the vault between computers, keeping it off 1Password.com servers?

So when I created my 1Password.com account to start our Families plan, my data - which was previously stored on and synced via iCloud - was migrated to 1Password.com servers? And all accounts and subsequent vaults created to use with this Families plan will do the same?

Thanks,
Jesse

AGAlumB

Thank you so much for your help. I used to use iCloud to sync my main vault while my parents used Dropbox to sync theirs. As I said, we have been using 1Password for a few years without 1Password.com accounts. My dad does not want to store his secondary vault because it contains their financial information. I do not have the same level of security concerns, but I know it is important to him.

@Jesse3Names: There isn't actually a way to use any data with 1Password without storing it in 1Password, so I'm not sure I understand the comment about your dad. It sounds like security is a chief concern with your family as well (as it should be), and frankly it's ours too. Otherwise we wouldn't use 1Password.com either! There's a lot more detail in our security white paper (which is actually a really fun read, even if you're not into cryptography), but I'd like to offer a few points that summarize how 1Password secures our data:

1. Your 1Password data is encrypted locally on your device before it is transmitted.
2. The server receives only an encrypted blob.
3. Your Master Password is never transmitted.

You might think I'm talking about 1Password.com specifically there, but that's the case no matter what 1Password setup you use. However, 1Password.com data is also encrypted using the 128-bit randomly generated Secret Key, which is also never transmitted to us. So there's an additional layer of security there as well which you won't get with a different setup. So you're all better off using that.

He has been syncing it between his computers with a thumb drive, as I mentioned. So there is no way for him to continue to manually transfer the vault between computers, keeping it off 1Password.com servers?

This is not something that's ever been supported. We had an experimental USB sync feature about a decade ago, but it was scrapped due to reliability issues. He can certainly do whatever he wants, but it's not something we can assist with. Best case scenario, you end up with conflicts; worst case, data loss. A 1Password account avoids those issues using built-in sync, has additional security features, and also adds automatic offsite backup and item history for the encrypted data stored there -- which, again, no one but the user themself has the "keys" to decrypt it.

So when I created my 1Password.com account to start our Families plan, my data - which was previously stored on and synced via iCloud - was migrated to 1Password.com servers?

That's not something that would have just happened spontaneously, but yes, once you migrate data to the account, it's stored encrypted on the server.

And all accounts and subsequent vaults created to use with this Families plan will do the same?

If you create vaults in the 1Password account, they will "live" on the server with everything else in the account.

I hope this helps. Be sure to let me know if you have any other questions! :)

Jesse3Names

This is not something that's ever been supported. We had an experimental USB sync feature about a decade ago, but it was scrapped due to reliability issues. He can certainly do whatever he wants, but it's not something we can assist with. Best case scenario, you end up with conflicts; worst case, data loss.

@brenty Allow me to clarify. When I say “synced,” what I mean is the vault file was stored on a USB thumb drive. My dad would export that vault on one computer to the thumb drive, eject it, plug in the thumb drive to the other computer, erase the previous contents of the same vault on the other computer, and import all of the logins and what-not. So when you speak about conflicts, he is well aware, but fortunately he has not experienced data loss with this method. So he would not be able to continue doing this “export to USB and import to another vault” method? Let’s set aside the inconvenience and conflict/data loss risk for now, I just want to know if it can still be done for his sake.

Ben

@Jesse3Names

That isn't something that we can help with; sorry. As Brenty mentioned it isn't something we support or would ever recommend. As such going down the rabbit hole of what might be possible seems counter productive. 1Password Families vaults are synced via 1Password.com. If there are concerns about that we'd be happy to help address those concerns, but we can't comment further on unsupported workarounds.

Ben

AGAlumB

Yeah I have seen too much to "set aside the inconvenience and conflict/data loss risk". Yikes.

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