Does 1Password 8 change local backup situation?

mikebore

In https://1password.community/discussion/114953/do-i-need-to-create-my-own-backup-of-my-vaults-1password-com Ben explained:

"1Password keeps a "local cache" of all of your data in a database that resides inside
~/Library/Group Containers/2BUA8C4S2C.com.agilebits/Library/Application Support/1Password/Data
If you quit 1Password completely, disconnect from the internet, and then restore this folder from Time Machine, you can launch 1Password and it will unlock with the data that was present at the time the backup you restored was taken."

Not great but something. Ben goes on to say Agile are looking for a way to streamline this.

I haven't found any discussion of how 1P8 handles this.

Thanks

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1Password Version: 8.5.0
Extension Version: 2.0.7
OS Version: macOS 12.1

Ben

Hi @mikebore

At present, the situation is the same as it was. We are looking to build a "1pex" (1Password Encrypted Export) format that will hopefully better satisfy some of the use cases surrounding this. :+1:

Ben

mikebore

Thanks, so 1Password doesn't remove any capability here. That's good news. What you describe is certainly not convenient but restoring from a local backup would be an extremely rare event, so convenience is not a big deal.

Lack of local backup is an oft repeated criticism of 1P which doesn't seem to be justified.

Ben

You're welcome. And you're right, in terms of the local cache, nothing has been removed. :+1: That said the local cache was not designed to be a backup. It can function in that role, but for some use cases there is a fair bit to be desired. For example, it doesn't have its own versioned snapshots: for the local cache to serve as a backup we'd be reliant on an external source like Time Machine to serve that purpose. Fortunately most folks concerned about local backups do have something like Time Machine set up. I think we can do more/better here though, and hopefully that'll prove to be the case. 🤞🏻

Ben

mikebore

Thanks Ben. Related to this is a question about exporting PDFs. In 1P7, from time to time I did 'select all items' and 'export to PDF', which resulted in a single PDF with all my 1P data. Very large, but searchable. (Of course I kept it in an encrypted disk image). I have never used it but felt it was some protection against Armageddon.
I just tried to do this in 1P8 and am not seeing how. I can't recall exactly what I did in 1P7 and I have now deleted 1P7 and gone all in with 1P8. Has something changed in 1P8?
Also I see I can 'select all' and export a .1pux file, but not clear what I co do with a .1pux file?

Ben

We don't support exporting to PDF, but we do have documentation available on the 1pux format:

About the 1Password Unencrypted Export format

In the case of armageddon, it would be possible to view (and search) your items from this export. It is an unencrypted export though, so the similar precautions (encrypted disk image) would be appropriate.

Ben

mikebore

Thanks. So has exporting to PDF has been dropped from 1Password8?

I had seen that article about pux files before posting previously but am unable to find anything to browse. The article says it is a zip archive, so I tried opening it with Archiver app, but couldn't reach anything browseable/searchable. Can you give a pointer?

Ben

The only export we have in 1Password 8, at the moment, is 1PUX. Inside the 1PUX zip will be an export.data file which you can open and review with a text editor.

Ben

mikebore

Thanks Ben. I had to download a third party app to unzip the 1PUX but can now see the export.data file which I opened in TextEdit. I confess that it seems virtually unusable to me!
You didn't mention the option to export a CSV file which gives Logins and Passwords which is far more usable (when opened in Excel), at least for those.
I am not too concerned about the loss of capability here compared to 1P7, but hope it will stay on the list to be improved as mentioned.

Ben

You didn't mention the option to export a CSV file which gives Logins and Passwords which is far more usable (when opened in Excel), at least for those.

Admittedly I missed that we'd shipped that. Thanks for pointing it out. :+1: This contains much less data than 1PUX, but if it serves the purpose, that's great.

I am not too concerned about the loss of capability here compared to 1P7, but hope it will stay on the list to be improved as mentioned.

For sure. :)

Ben

mikebore

As I said earlier I find the 1PUX process very clunky and impenetrable compared to exporting PDFs from 1P7.

The CSV file looks usable but as you implied is incomplete. Why is that? I can't see any pattern to what is missing?

Perhaps I could have an update on this please. You mentioned 1PEX format....how is that coming on? will it be more accessible than 1PUX?

Thanks

rob

Hey, @mikebore. Sorry for the delayed response here.

CSV exports are great for tabular data but notoriously awful for structured data. There is typically an expectation with CSV that a column means the same thing for every cell in the column. If we follow that approach, you'd have Login items with blank credit card number fields, Credit Cards with blank username and password fields, and all sorts of other combinations like that which would make the CSV have tons of mostly empty columns and be very hard to use. A better option would probably be to export multiple CSVs, one for every item type, but that's hard to use in other ways, and you still have the same problem for every custom field you add to an item. For now, we felt that the use case of exporting just usernames and passwords in a CSV was the most clear.

I don't have a status update on 1PEX, but it's not going to be more accessible than 1PUX, mostly because the data will be encrypted. Both of those formats are designed for computers, not humans, to parse, but because 1PUX is unencrypted, it's possible to use it for your Armageddon scenario, even though it's not designed for that purpose.

mikebore

Thanks Rob, though not very encouraging. I guess it really depends if 1PUX and 1PEX ever become recognised formats for importing to other apps. Otherwise with no PDF export and incomplete CSV, committing to 1P8 is a one way street.

rob

The predecessor to 1PUX was 1PIF (1Password Interchange Format), which actually is supported by other apps, and I imagine 1PUX will be supported in the future as well. Unsurprisingly, providing an export format that is easy for computers to read makes for a very attractive import feature for our competitors. 😄 In exchange, they often provide rather awful exports (like CSV) that take quite a bit of effort for us to import correctly. But we want to provide a nice export option so users never feel locked in. That's the purpose of 1PUX.

A PDF export is not something that a competitor would ever attempt to import. That's more along the lines of the Armageddon scenario. I'm not sure it's currently on the roadmap, but I've passed it on to the team for consideration.

Thanks for the feedback!

ref: IDEA-I-873

mikebore

Thanks @rob

Not being locked in is important to me. (I am the same with Photo organisation where I keep an organised backup set of photo files which are not locked in to the proprietary organisation of Adobe and Apple libraries).

Anyway I just did a trial 1Pux export/import to a well known competitor and it worked, so I feel much more comfortable staying with 1Password 8 knowing this. My purpose in reporting this to reassure others who might feel like me, that we are not locked in, not to encourage a move, which I have no intention of doing.

Ben

Thanks for sharing, @mikebore. Not locking people in is important to us as well. 1PUX is the most comprehensive export format we've ever offered, so I'm fairly proud of that. Now it'll be up to competitors to offer solid importing of it. Glad to hear it sounds like there is at least one already doing that.

Ben