Do you keep your Emergency Kit in your iCloud Drive

thought_police

Hi

In the 1Password instructions it suggests you should keep your Emergency Kit in your cloud storage. In my case that is iCloud primarily.

So, the plan is to just put the PDF file of the Emergency Kit in the iCloud Drive I guess.

I can't see why that is a bad idea. I have an excellent password scoring "Fantastic" in 1 Password for my Apple ID. I have two factor authentication on for iCloud as well.

So, have I totally covered everything security wise and is it safe for me to put the kit in my iCloud Drive?

Is that where you keep yours?

---

1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Browser:_ Not Provided

Tertius3

This is not the question you should ask yourself first. Instead, ask yourself what you need to do to recover your account in case of some catastrophic failure of some hardware, theft, or lapse of brain.

Can it happen that you lose every computing device? If yes, what happens next? You buy a new one, then try to access your existing accounts. What information do you need to access the service that is required to access all other accounts? I assume 1Password is the account you need to access first, to get all access information to access everything else.

What do you need to access 1Password? Master password, Secret Key, and if you enabled it the 2fa QR code. So this information needs to be in your reach now. In case you still have access to at least one 1Password login on some machine, you can get it from there. In case not, you need to get it external from 1Password.
If you added your master password to the emergency kit and the 2fa QR code, is it still possible to access your cloud drive without the help of 1Password? If not, you have a chicken-and-egg problem to resolve.

If you somehow still have access to your cloud storage but lost access to 1Password, you can easily consult the emergency kit from your cloud storage, so it's a good place for easy retrieval. However, if you need 1Password to retrieve your cloud credentials, you cannot rely on the emergency kit in the cloud storage, because it is inaccessible in this moment.

In the end, if you lost access to everything, the only thing that helps is external memory - either your brain or some piece of paper. I assume you cannot memorize the secret key and the 2fa QR code, so print your emergency kit, add password and qr code, and store it along your other important paper documents. And additionally, store the same information in some secured storage in digital form to be able to print it again in case the printing gets lost. Personally, I use my cloud storage for this, secured by complex password and 2fa.

thought_police

Thank you @Tertius3 for your thoughtful response.

It is good advice and I have thought through the different possible scenarios and arranged things so that if I forget my 1Password master password, then I will still be able to obtain it.

Dave_1P

@thought_police

I'm sorry for the late reply. I think that @Tertius3 has some good advice, let me know if you have any questions. 🙂

I will add that, if you have iCloud Keychain turned on, 1Password will save the equivalent of your Emergency Kit in the Keychain. I also usually suggest that folks print out and store a copy of their Emergency Kit in a secure location like a personal safe or safety deposit box in a bank.

-Dave

JTH19

how do you add emergency kit to iCloud so that it doesn't remain on your computer?

ag_tommy

@JTH19

There are potentially two asks here.

1. It could be you're asking about storing the Emergency Kit in iCloud drive, the user-facing portion of iCloud. If you elect this option, you will store the document there as you would any other.

2. If you're asking about adding the details to the keychain (note the difference), This is done automatically. Encrypted copies of your Secret Key are stored in your device keychains to provide data loss protection.

That said, there are times when you may need access, and provided you are signed into a device, it would pose no trouble. However, if you're not signed into any device and you have your iCloud password saved inside 1Password, you would end up in a catch-22 type of situation. I would highly encourage you to keep a local copy (printed) or your Emergency Kit (in addition to any electronic copies) if you should ever happen to need it. I've woken up, and for the life of me, I could not recall my password. Because I saved my password locally with a copy of my Emergency Kit, I was able to access my data. The mind is fickle, and some mornings it just does as it pleases.

I work from the three anchors mentality, in that they will keep you safe to live another day. This is from my days as a young man rock-climbing and rappelling. I have local copies (including other devices such as phones), select trusted friends' homes, and then there is a copy in a safe deposit box. Not to mention account recovery is a possibility. If you have a family membership, then I cannot recommend looking into it enough. I lost the Mrs. several years back, and account recovery was invaluable to me. In fact, it's the single reason that I recommend a family membership to everyone. It costs slightly more, sure, but you can give 1Password as a gift to someone in the family, and they can act as a recovery person for you or vice versa if it's a relative who might need the feature more than you. The feature needs to be set up correctly. Please take care of that now if you have a family membership.

🚑 Recover accounts for family or team members

JTH19

Thank you very much Tommy,

That's very helpful :)

ag_tommy

You're welcome.