Multiple Vaults - How I'd like it to work

hesspaul

I've newly upgraded to 1Password 4 and I think the multiple vaults capability has the potential to be a killer feature someday.

Right now I am disappointed about the way vaults are handled and how the results are presented for unlocked vaults. Forgive me in advance if there are features I have not yet discovered that would address these concerns. I would love it to work as follows:

• I would have multiple vaults synced from multiple locations
  (in my case I would have my private vault on dropbox, one shared with my family, and one shared amongst work colleagues)

• Each vault could be either locked or unlocked individually. I can optionally store vault passwords in my primary vault to allow other vaults to automatically unlock upon my approval

• Each vault would have default settings I could change on whether it is unlocked upon startup, how long it stays unlocked before needing PIN level confirmation, and how long before fully re-locking

• When I visit a web site and use the famous flower-backslash shortcut, 1P should offer me matching results from any and all of my matching vaults. I should have to switch from vault to vault just to see what might be matching and where it is. This to me would be the most helpful feature (don't know why I mentioned it last!)

Megan

Hi @hesspaul,

I would like to apologize for the delay in responding to you here but we have been a bit overwhelmed since the launch of 1Password 4 for Mac. We're all working hard and putting in extra hours to get back to our usual snappy responses and we really appreciate your patience.

Thanks so much for the feedback on multiple vaults. Please believe me when I say that this release represents only the start of what we would like to do with multiple vaults. There is much more good stuff on the way! But I'll do my best to address your current concerns here.

I would have multiple vaults synced from multiple locations (in my case I would have my private vault on dropbox, one shared with my family, and one shared amongst work colleagues)

Each vault would have default settings I could change on whether it is unlocked upon startup, how long it stays unlocked before needing PIN level confirmation, and how long before fully re-locking

Each vault does have its own sync and lock settings. Just select Preferences when you are in each vault and set as you desire.

Each vault could be either locked or unlocked individually. I can optionally store vault passwords in my primary vault to allow other vaults to automatically unlock upon my approval

We have heard a lot from users who would like more individual locking control for vaults. Right now, unlocking your primary vault will unlock all of your secondary vaults. This was done to prevent users from having to remember multiple 'Master Passwords'. If you would like to open just a secondary vault, you can select the 1Password menu while 1Password is locked and select 'Switch to Vault'. This will open just the selected vault and leave your primary (and all other secondary vaults) locked.

When I visit a web site and use the famous flower-backslash shortcut, 1P should offer me matching results from any and all of my matching vaults. I should have to switch from vault to vault just to see what might be matching and where it is. This to me would be the most helpful feature (don't know why I mentioned it last!)

This is also a common request from users, and I have to admit, I'd find it pretty useful too. I'll be sure to add your vote (and mine) to the feature request.

I hope this helps to answer your questions, but if I can provide any further clarification, please don't hesitate to ask!

hesspaul

Thanks for your responses Megan! As I continue to use it, I've been able to adapt and I'm left with the single top priority of wishing the search results could span across all vaults so please double my vote for that one. :-)

Side note to think about: Not having the unified search results has encouraged me to keep everything in my primary vault, and ALSO share copies with people I collaborate with. This can be a problem if things change and get updated, but it's also a reassurance that if someone else deletes an item in a shared vault, I will still have a copy for myself. I wish that if items in a shared vault got deleted, that it would simply be "unshared" and revery back to my own vault. I know this is a major change in your sharing paradigm but I wanted to float the concept just to help with your long term thinking.

Megan

Hi @hesspaul,

I'm happy to add an extra vote to the 'Search all Vaults' feature request - it sure is a popular one :)

I wish that if items in a shared vault got deleted, that it would simply be "unshared" and revery back to my own vault. I know this is a major change in your sharing paradigm but I wanted to float the concept just to help with your long term thinking.

Thanks so much for adding your thoughts here. Unfortunately, because items are encrypted at the vault level, this type of monitoring and sharing is currently impossible. You're right though, trusting other people with any vault data does open up the possibility that someone might inadvertently delete or alter an entry. That's just one of the reasons that we have 1Password complete and save backups automatically: if at any point you notice that something is missing, you can simply restore from a backup, and you're good to go!

We never say never though, so I'll pass your idea along in case things do change in the long term :)

clizza

Exactly the right ideas but one other issue really makes this feature almost useless, unless I am missing something. We are copying to a new vault when we should be linking! I find myself updating a login in my primary that is shared but the shared entry is not updated!

Megan

Hi @clizza,

Thanks so much for adding your thoughts here! I'm happy to add your vote to the feature request, and I do apologize if the current method of copying items to a secondary vault is confusing. We'll do what we can to make it more clear in a future update that these items are not linked. The best practice now is to delete the original entry once it has been copied over into the secondary vault.

I hope this helps, but do keep the feedback coming :)

hesspaul

@clizza here is a tip: I've taken to keeping my own old copy in my vault but RENAMING it to remind myself that the shared one is the "active" one that I should look to for the most recent info.

Megan

Hi @hesspaul,

Thanks for adding that little tip here. I think that's a great way to keep track of things.

I did just want to mention here that 1Password 4.3 has added a 'Move' option to the Item menu so you can directly move items from one vault to another with no need to copy! :)