Thoughts on Multiple Vaults

Megan

This discussion was created from comments split from: 1Password 4.5: Dropbox Sync requires set-up.

PeteTh

@Megan‌ @MrRooni‌
I'm quite new to 1Password, only purchased this weekend, but I have been considering it for years!

Anyway my initial observation regarding the issue described in this post is : We have 2 iPads in our house which various family members use, and obviously iPads don't support multiple user profiles. So I recently set up one of the iPads with a 'new user' with an Empty Vault, then used 'Add Vault' to add the vaults we may need access to on that iPad e.g 'Family Vault' and 'My wifes Vault' and 'my daughters', and finally 'mine'. Now this is great as we can switch vaults and get access to each as needed.

But I don't want my daughter to get access to my vault unless, I specifically log into my Vault for her (for a limited period of time). Currently anyone who can access the Primary Vault (the empty one) automatically gets access to all our Vaults. I definitely don't want this.

To me the simple thing that is missing is :

• When you change 'Vaults' it should request the 'Master Password' for that Vault, only if you know it do you gain access. That then becomes your current vault, and can be locked if need be.

In this way we could access all our Vaults on the iPad, but only if you know the password of that Vault. You may then lock that Vault to stop others using.

This would be rather similar to 1Password Mini on the Mac, which does allow you to click the Vault Symbol to log into a different Vault. Where as the 1Password the Mac Application - always seems to want to know your Primary Vault's password - then shows all Vaults - again without prompting for the Master Password of each Vault.

So in summary I think the Mini App has the best way of working.

FreemanD

+1, for ability to login only to a secondary vault on iOS.
My daughter has and iPhone, and I want her to access one of the secondary vaults with important family pw / info. But as currently setup she needs the master password to login to the primary account on ios. There doesn't seem to be a way to setup a secondary account as her 'primary' account on iOS, or for her to be able to log in directly to a secondary account only. without this it makes sharing vaults very difficult.

Megan

Hi @PeteTh,

Thanks so much for choosing 1Password to keep your digital life secure and organized! I've moved your post into its very own thread, since what we're talking about here isn't entirely related to the issue of Dropbox sync and non-standard named primary vaults.

I really appreciate you sharing your user experience here. I can understand how this feature could be useful on a shared iOS device. Currently, the design of 1Password is such that the encryption keys for all your secondary vaults are stored within the primary vault, so that you can have easy access to all your data by unlocking your primary vault. This ensures that you only have to remember one Master Password, instead of one for each and every vault.

Allowing children to access just a secondary vault is possible in the desktop app by using 1Password > Switch to Vault when the app is locked, which will require the Master Password for the secondary vault and not allow switching to any other vault without a password request.

Unfortunately, this feature is not available in the iOS device at this time. I do apologize for the inconvenience, and I'm happy to pass your thoughts along to our developers. Thanks for the great feedback!

Neil Morrish

The new multiple vaults feature is great but the documentation and UI is not clear about relationship between primary vault and secondary with regards to primary has access to all secondary vaults. Where the bits are stored matters not its the user experience that counts here. When you realise it you double take... it appears to be bug or design flaw which it clearly is not after reading a few posts. The use case described above is on the money I have the exact same problem. The shared family iPad in family areas is common the world over as is shared family passwords. Please consider this use case I think it has merit.

Jasper

Hi Neil,

Thanks for the feedback! I will let our developers know that you're also interested in this. :)

Rice

Same here... I want to use only one app for passwords storage. At work I share all server admin passwords with my colleague, but I definitely don't want him to see my personal passwords... Our previous password app (SafeWallet) showed the available vaults at startup. You chose a vault and the masterpassword field for that specific vault popped up. All vaults were synced to Dropbox. Would be awesome if this would be possible with 1Password.

Megan

Hi @Rice,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts here. Multiple vaults is still a relatively new feature for 1Password, and we know that there is a lot of room for improvement, and many tweaks we could make to ensure that this feature is more powerful and useful for everyone.

Your patience is much appreciated as we work to refine this! :)