Synching secondary vault on Mac to iOS

xyzsail

I just upgraded Mac and iOS from version 3, and HOPE to get this set up without spending the rest of my life doing so. I really like 1PW, but have spent hours with trying to get this working from version 3. I now have Mac OS 10.9.5, 1PW 4.4.3, and an iPhone 6 with iOS 8.1.1, and 1PW 5.1.2.

On my Mac, I have the main vault and 2 other "sub" vaults, Work and Family. Before setting up those two vaults on my Mac, I was syncing only via WiFi and all worked well. Then I set up the 2 vaults and only the main vault entries show up on my phone. From wandering around online, it appears that I have to sync via drop box (instead if wi-fi) to sync the vaults, and that I have to set that up first somehow? I've tried searching in your discussion boards and manuals and am more confused than ever.

I thought I'd start out by trying to sync the main vault via dropbox, so I added a test login on my phone. Since I've been syncing via WiFi, that seems to be the only option on Mac (window/wifi sync). I don't see ANY place to start a dropbox sync from my Mac. THEN I went to my phone and found the option to sync via drop box there, so I chose that and it said it said it synced, but didn't put the test id i created on my mac. However, deselecting wi-fi in your application disconnected my phone from wifi, and I had to set it up again, then had to reselect wifi on my mac. Sync via wi-fi is working again, but still NADA with dropbox

It's really sad that for an app that is so useful, and has so many features, you really make USING the features difficult!

abcdmath

I am having the same issue, except I use iCloud for my syncing. I created two "sub-vaults" on my Mac, but they aren't showing up on my iPhone 6 or iPads.

Drew_AG

Hi @xyzsail and @abcdmath,

Each vault has its own sync settings in 1Password. The Primary vault can sync via iCloud, Dropbox, or Wi-Fi. Secondary vaults can sync via Dropbox. To set up Dropbox sync for a secondary vault on your Mac:

• Open the main 1Password app on your Mac, and switch to a secondary vault.
• Go to the 1Password menu and select Preferences, then choose Sync.
• Select Dropbox, and then click the Choose button.
• Choose your main Dropbox folder and click Open.
• Click Create New when you see the message about creating a vault in Dropbox.

This will create a new keychain file in the Dropbox/1Password/ folder, and the name of the vault will be in the keychain name. For example, if the secondary vault is called "test" the new keychain will be "test.agilekeychain". To sync that vault with your iOS device:

• Open 1Password on the iOS device, and go to Settings > Vaults.
• Tap the Add Vault option and choose Sync with Dropbox.
• When you see your Dropbox account name, tap on the name (do not tap on the 'i' icon).
• Choose the keychain file for the secondary vault you want to sync.
• Enter your master password for that vault.

Please allow some extra time for the initial sync to complete. Hopefully this helps, but let us know if you have more questions about that. Thanks!

xyzsail

Drew_AG,
Thanks for the step-by-step instructions. Worked well, and I synced my work vault.

Now, can you explain what the vault passwords are needed for, other than synching? In addition to the work vault, I created an archive vault. I don't care so much about the archive vault (it's for keeping things I think I don't need anymore, but don't want to lose forever, just in case), but I forgot the archive vault password. So far haven't had any problem (open the main app, then use command-3 to get to the vault). Should I be worried? and what should I do?

Thanks!

abcdmath

Drew_AG,
As xyzsail, I was able to sync the different vaults to my other devices. Thank you for the directions.

I went back to the User Guide and I couldn't find these instructions in it. Is that intentional or an oversight?

Thank you again.

xyzsail

Hi Drew,
Maybe you missed my additional questions above...

Now, can you explain what the vault passwords are needed for, other than synching? In addition to the work vault, I created an archive vault. I don't care so much about the archive vault (it's for keeping things I think I don't need anymore, but don't want to lose forever, just in case), but I forgot the archive vault password. So far haven't had any problem (open the main app, then use command-3 to get to the vault). Should I be worried? and what should I do?

Thanks, Pat

littlebobbytables

@xyzsail‌

Due to how secondary vaults work on Macs and iOS you do find you don't use your Master Passwords for the secondary vaults much at all. In fact the first time I set up a secondary vault by the time I wanted to remember what password I'd used it was completely forgotten.

What I did was I set up a new secondary vault, transferred all the items from the original one, deleted the old secondary vault and then I made a point of adding the password for the secondary vault as a Password item in my primary vault. On the Mac you can open just a secondary vault although I'm not sure how much that functionality gets used. As you can see from my workaround above though I wouldn't be too worried as the situation is always retrievable (well as long as you remember your Master Password for your primary vault anyway - don't forget that one!!!).

I hope that helps.

littlebobbytables

@abcdmath‌

We do have a guide for Sharing a vault but it is in the knowledgebase and it might not be the obvious place to look to learn about synchronising secondary vaults. We shall take your thoughts on board :smile:

ref: DOCS-170

xyzsail

Thanks, Drew, helpful comment. I have saved my important secondary vault pw in the main vault, and the other isn't too important, but good to know.

couple related questions, if you don't mind....
It appears I can sync from my phone OR from my mac; I haven't seen anything that indicates a difference. Is it just personal preference, or is it better for some reason to use 1 method consistently? I'm still trying to understand the differences between iCloud, dropbox, and wifi. It seems iCloud is most limiting, since you can't sync secondary vaults.

I now see 3 entries in my vault list: Primary, 1Password, and Work Vault. Primary and 1Password both have the same number of items in the vault, but Primary wll let me choose dropbox, iCloud, or wi-fi to sync, but 1Password vault seems to be only dropbox. Does that make sense? Can you explain why I seem to have two copies of what I would consider the main vault, and why the sync possibilities are different?

Thanks, Pat

littlebobbytables

Hi @xyzsail‌

When you say you can sync from your phone or your Mac can you expand a little on what you mean? Definitely the point of sync is as a two-way sync. Now some people have a natural preference and tend to only make changes on one device but it's designed to allow editing on any device. All we'd recommend is not having lots of people editing items all at the same time (think small departments sharing a vault scenario) but if it's just you editing different items on each device they should all sync up fine.

For our sync methods available:

• Dropbox is the most versatile. It works on all platforms and it's the only way to sync secondary vaults at the moment. It's also the only method which allows for a sharing of a vault between different users.
• iCloud. It's a bit of a blackbox and you can only sync your primary vault. For some users though it means they're not running the Dropbox client as iCloud sync is built into all Apple devices.
• Wi-Fi Sync is for those that just don't like cloud services. It can only sync your primary vault at the moment but we are working on syncing secondary vaults too. Wi-Fi sync is only between a desktop and a mobile device though e.g. 1Password for Mac and 1Password for iOS. It won't work between iOS devices or between Macs.

For the last part, it sounds like something has gone a little wrong if you have a primary and 1Password vault. When you sync a primary vault the name of the agilekeychain is always 1password.agilekeychain. I can only assume that at some point you accidentally added your primary vault as a secondary by double clicking on the agilekeychain. So while the contents are the same technically the 1Password vault is being treated as a secondary vault and so limited to Dropbox.

What I'd suggest doing is with each vault active, check to see what agilekeychain it is syncing to and report back here with your findings. I think you're going to find that two are pointing to the same one so we can safely disable sync in one and remove that vault. Lets see what you find first though.

xyzsail

First question/comment about sync from Mac or phone...Most of the times i've synced, i've started from my phone, but a few times, I think I was then able to start the sync from the mac? I'm not positive because I've been around this bush so many times, I'm confused about what HAS and what HAS NOT worked. I'll be the only one syncing, I don't share the app with anyone else.

The second part about what appears to be 2 main vaults: I recently updated both my OSX 1PW (from 3 to 4 - I'm still on Mavericks) and on my phone from 3 to 5 (paid version). At one point I had both the old and the new programs in my apps folder on the Mac and screwed up my courage to delete the version 3 icon and was happy to find that my data was still there. On my phone, I still have both the old icon (key with the lock) and the new icon (keyhole). I'm guessing that is part of it, but don't know how to fix it. When I synced just now, the phone said it synced to 1Password.agilekeychain. When I look at preferences on Mac, it also shows syncing to 1Password.agilekeychain.

On Mac, when I go to preferences Switch to Vault, I see 3 vaults: Primary (where most of my logins are -165 logins plus 9 secure notes), Work Vault (23 logins, shows sync to Work Vault.agilekeychain), and zzArchive Vault (7 logins, not synced as discussed in prior session).

So the confusing thing is that above it shows that it's syncing to 1Password, but the list of vaults shows Primary, and the settings/vaults tab on my phone shows Primary, 1Password, and Work Vault.

Thanks, Pat

MrRooni

Good morning @xyzsail.

To answer your first question, you can setup syncing from any device that has your data on it. For instance, if you had been using 1Password for a while on just an iPhone, and then you got a Mac, you could sync the data from the iPhone to the Mac.

In terms of the duplicate vaults on your iPhone, I'm thinking it will be safe to remove the second one in the list. Try this:

1. Tap on Settings > Vaults
2. Tap the (i) icon to the right of the second vault in the list, the one titled 1Password.
3. Tap the Remove Vault button at the bottom of that screen.

Once we've got that taken care of let's double check that your Primary vault is syncing properly. Do you have that one set up to sync over Wi-Fi or Dropbox?

xyzsail

Sorry for my absence. got busy with holiday stuff then couldn't find our conversation again. I deleted the vault as you suggested, and looks ok so far. Closed the app and restarted, still looks ok. It is scary deleting all that info!

Still having trouble with wi-fi sync though. I know both phone and mac have to be on wireless, but I've just found that for some reason my phone keeps getting thrown off wifi. It seems like I have to turn the phone wifi on, then go to mac 1PW window; wifi sync, and it opens that sync window and syncs, but when it's done with the sync, it closes the wifi connection on my phone "for" me, because as soon as the sync is done the wifi symbol disappears from my phone status at the top. Is that normal???

Thanks, Pat

Winnie

Hi @xyzsail,

could you post a screenshot of that? Wifi sync should definitely not turn your wifi off for you - I am actually pretty sure that is not even possible to do with the iOS API. However I would love to figure out what is going on there.