Finding a synced file, manually, after a computer crash wipes out newly inputted data

F'kir Eldercake

I entered a new password into a secure note, and when I came back to it the new data was lost. In the meantime I had switched syncing from Dropbox to iCloud, and at some point the computer had also crashed. There are no backups with that data in them. I was wondering if I could find the file as a previous version in Dropbox...presumably I had hit save on the note and it was sent to Dropbox...

sjk

Hi, F'kir Eldercake.

I'm sorry you've lost a Secure Note item, although if it was saved to a 1Password keychain in Dropbox then there's a great possibility you'll still be able to recover it while still in a 1P keychain there now or within 30 days since deletion (or longer if subscribed to the Packrat feature).

Without knowing where the 1P keychain is/was that might contain the missing Secure Note I don't have specific instructions for which one to use (and possibly restore first, with a specific version) so for now I'll give you this more general overview of what to do …

First, here's a link to results when searching for restore in the Dropbox Help Center on their site: Help search - Dropbox

Which topics there might be relevant depends on which 1P keychain(s) you'll want.

Once you've got a 1P keychain candidate you can open it in a temporary secondary vault in 1P4 to look for the missing Secure Note. Or, if the keychain is named 1Password.agilekeychain then you can first browse it on the Dropbox site using 1PasswordAnywhere. And when you've found the item and it's available in a secondary 1P4 vault then you can use Item > Share > VaultName to copy it to a different vault.

Let's start with that and I can "fill in the blanks" with more detail later, if necessary, after you've seen this and maybe tried and or all of it. Please do let me know how it goes. :)

F'kir Eldercake

Hi, thanks for the response. Dropbox only saves revisions of files, however 1Password.agilekeychain shows up as a folder. Might the *.1Password files within the keychain be what I am looking for?

Jasper

The 1Password.agilekeychain file is a bundle, so on Dropbox it will look like a folder. Locally on a Mac with 1Password installed it will show up as an Agile Keychain file. If you're gonna use the secondary vault method from above, you will need the entire 1Password.agilekeychain "folder" for that. Or if you want to use the 1PasswordAnywhere method, you can open the 1Password.html file that's inside the 1Password.agilekeychain "folder".

sjk

You're on the right track, F'kir Eldercake. :)

What you've discovered about 1Password.agilekeychain showing up as a folder, like @JasperP confirmed, may make it trickier to restore one for a particular date/time.

I'm still determining if this type of recovery from Dropbox backups is a trial and error process or has step-by-step instructions. Someone who's more Dropbox-savvy than I am may know the answer… @thightower perhaps? :)

thightower

I have to admit, I have never ever tried to restore a keychain from Dropbox or a portion of it.

I use Crashplan and have my Mac backing up their servers as well as my mini. If I ever need to restore a keychain I use its restore functionality. I then restore my entire previous keychain state.

or

I also have Hazel setup to copy my keychain to the desktop, zip it up, and rename it according to the day, date etc. Its then moved to a designated Dropbox folder where it is kept for 15 days and then removed if not needed. I started using this method some time ago years to be exact. Since I run so many betas for 1Password and Dropbox I wanted to keep my backups as diverse as possible. The Desktop is used only as a medium during the purposes.

For me its just plain easier to open an old keychain inside a Virtual Machine (keeps my current keychain safe) verses trying to restore a specific file.
I am sorry I cannot be of more help.