Is it possible to sync multiple vaults on iOS? [not yet]

Mathieu Allaire
Mathieu Allaire
Community Member
edited November 2013 in iOS

Hi,

For those of you who have two vaults, 1 personal and 1 enterprise, I found a quick hack to have both on iOS.

First, my personal vault is now in iCloud (I used to have both on Dropbox) and sync perfectly with iOS and Mac.

The tricky part is having the second vault (enterprise) to sync. I chose the Dropbox sync option for that vault. Then what I did is simple, 1Password seems to look for the .agilekeychain file at ~/Dropbox/Documents/1Password/1Password.agilekeychain (this looks like it's hardcoded for iOS and always look for that particular path)

I only created a symlink to the correct path of our enterprise .agilekeychain:

mkdir Dropbox/Documents/1Password && cd Dropbox/Documents/1Password
ln -s ~/Dropbox/Lodgem/shared/1Password/Lodgem.agilekeychain 1Password.agilekeychain

And voilà, it worked out of the box, I can now use both vaults on iOS.

No idea if this was documented somewhere or if it is supposed to work, but it did for me.

Comments

  • AGKyle
    AGKyle
    1Password Alumni
    edited November 2013

    Hi Mathieu,

    Thanks for taking the time to post your suggestion here. However, I'm not sure this is doing what you think it's doing. Let me describe it, so it makes more sense. :)

    Right now, 1Password 4 for iOS has no considerations for multiple vaults in the interface. It has the same type of underlying database structure as the Mac version, so we can implement it in the future, but for the sake of interfacing with it, it just isn't there.

    In 1Password 4 we have two types of sources of data.

    1. The first is a local store. This is a local storage area for data. If you're not syncing then the local store is all that is used.

    2. The second is a sync store. This is (in the case of 1Password 4) only used for syncing data. When syncing you have both a local store and a sync store.

    In the current release of 1Password 4 for iOS there is only one "vault" in the local store. In the Mac version we support multiple vaults in the local store.

    When you sync on iOS, it imports the items from that sync source into the local store. On the first run, this should make the local store and the sync store identical. As changes go into the local store they get sent to the sync store and changes on other devices go into the sync store and then into the iOS local store.

    Now you have this:

    • Sync Store : Personal
    • Sync Store : Enterprise

    Each has separate data with no overlap. When you use two sync sources on iOS the first sync store and second sync store get merged into the local store as one giant vault. Then, each of those sync stores get all of the same data. Basically merging the two stores.

    After this you end up with this:

    • Sync Store : Personal + Enterprise (Enterprise was added to the Personal store)
    • Sync Store : Enterprise + Personal (Personal was added to the Enterprise store

    They get combined. And both stores are identical and contain ALL items from both stores.

    If this did not happen to you, it's likely a bug in the iOS app, or some sort of absolute sheer luck that it hasn't merged them yet and made them identical. I'd strongly encourage you to disable syncing of both as soon as possible and only have a single sync store or you may have unintended side effects such as merged data.

    I hope that helps explain further, but if you have any questions do ping me. For anyone else following along here:

    Please do not try this at home unless you want to merge your data :)

    We ask for your patience as we work on adding support for multiple vaults in 1Password 4 for iOS. I can't promise any kind of time frame at all, but it is definitely on our list.

  • Mathieu Allaire
    Mathieu Allaire
    Community Member

    You were absolutely right! Sorry about that!

  • AGKyle
    AGKyle
    1Password Alumni

    Hi Mathieu

    No, we're sorry about that. It's not a fun situation to be in if the merging happened.

    If you need help getting it sorted though, please email us: support+forum@agilebits.com

    Do mention my name and we'll get you fixed up asap.

  • Mathieu Allaire
    Mathieu Allaire
    Community Member

    @AGKyle, What's the preferred method currently to have access to my enterprise password on the go? A CSV export on my Dropbox?

  • Mathieu Allaire
    Mathieu Allaire
    Community Member

    @AGKyle, no worry about the merge, my personal volt had only a couple passwords (yet). So I deleted them manually!

    I'm now just wondering how I could have my company passwords on the go the safest way until iOS app support multiple vaults :)

  • AGKyle
    AGKyle
    1Password Alumni

    Hi Mathieu,

    In this case, you really don't want to put your CSV export on Dropbox. You should never put any unencrypted items on a system you don't trust. Remember, 1Password encrypts your data before it is ever sent to Dropbox, but a CSV file is not encrypted and therefore shouldn't be placed on Dropbox or any other cloud service.

    You could export the items from the enterprise vault then import into the personal vault if you wish. If it's a small number, you could select each item individually and goto Item->Share->Vault Name, in 1Password 4 for Mac. That'll copy the item to the personal vault (they don't update each other, they are separate items).

    Hope that helps, but hopefully the multiple vault feature isn't too far away and you won't have to worry about it much longer.

    Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns.

This discussion has been closed.