How does sync work?

jondear
jondear
Community Member
in Mac

Hi

A little confused as to how sync works. I wonder if anyone could help?

Lets say I have my Mac with 20 logins saved. I sync to iCloud. Then later on I delete 5 items from my Mac. When I again sync to iCloud, does it (1) make iCloud match the current 15 logins on my Mac or (2) sync the 20 logins on iCloud back to my Mac?

Also, I'm on 4.4.3 on my Mac (still on 10.9.5 so can't go to 5), and accidentally upgraded to 5 on my iPhone (iOS 8.1.2), so now I can't sync from Mac to iCloud to iPhone? Can I downgrade to 4 on the iPhone?

It would be clearer if the software gave a direction when syncing, like From Mac to iCloud, or From iCloud to Mac, and also if it said if it was creating a mirror copy, or merging (appending) data, when it synced. Especially as I'd want to go Mac to iCloud, iCloud to iPhone, and then maybe back later, iPhone to iCloud, iCloud to Mac. And either merging or mirroring.

Maybe it's all already written somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it.

Comments

  • hawkmoth
    hawkmoth
    Community Member

    I'm not sure what you to say about your version interactions, but more generally, the most recent change on any device prevails while syncing. You don't really need to worry about overwriting or precedence. Make your changes, and all devices automatically catch up.

  • Rad
    Rad
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @jondear‌,

    Thanks for taking the time to write in :smile:

    Lets say I have my Mac with 20 logins saved. I sync to iCloud. Then later on I delete 5 items from my Mac. When I again sync to iCloud, does it (1) make iCloud match the current 15 logins on my Mac or (2) sync the 20 logins on iCloud back to my Mac?

    The answers is 1. You should have 15 logins left. As soon as you make changes on your Mac, iCloud sync will kick in and update itself.

    Also, I'm on 4.4.3 on my Mac (still on 10.9.5 so can't go to 5), and accidentally upgraded to 5 on my iPhone (iOS 8.1.2), so now I can't sync from Mac to iCloud to iPhone? Can I downgrade to 4 on the iPhone?

    You cannot (re-)download 1Password 4 on a device running iOS8. If you wish to download 1Password 4 for iOS you need to be running iOS7.

    Do you remember opting in for iCloud Drive when you first updated your iPhone to iOS8? If so, please note that iCloud sync will not work anymore on your Mac running 1Password 4.4.3 or on any iOS device running 1Password 4. If you opted in for iCloud Drive, your entire iCloud data had been "migrated" to iCloud Drive. This change affects your entire iCloud account, not just 1Password the changes are per Apple ID and not per app.

    iCloud has significantly changed in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite. To learn more about these changes, please refer to our blog post about iCloud changes in 1Password 5 and to our iCloud FAQ article from our Knowledgebase.

    Hope that his helps :smiley:

    Best,

  • jondear
    jondear
    Community Member

    Thanks Hawkmoth and Rad,

    Sounds like I'd need to update to Yosemite on the Mac. If I disable Syncing on the iPhone, and re-enable it, it says "iCloud depends on CloudKit, which requires 1Password5 on iOS 8 and OS X 10.10", so no mention of iCloud Drive.

    If I go to Settings/iCloud, there stands the option to Upgrade to iCloud Drive, unselected, and Documents & Data still shows 1Password as ON. However the dataset I have on the iPhone no longer matches what I have on the Mac, and they both say they're syncing to (the same) iCloud account.

    Are both the Mac and the iPhone saving data to iCloud in different formats? Because they both indicate that they are syncing, but maybe one of them is lying?

    Maybe I can find some other way to sync the different OSes, perhaps WiFi sync instead? I'll take a look at that next, as this way just isn't working for me across different versions of the OS.

    New queries:
    1. If I Reset iCloud data, will it securely delete ALL my passwords synced on iCould?
    2. How secure are those Backup zip files that get saved to Application Support on the Mac?

    Many thanks for your help.

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @jondear‌

    The old iCloud sync and the new iCloud sync (using CloudKit) are completely different. Different protocol for syncing the changes, different containers for storing the data - the two are just incompatible.

    While iCloud is messy during this transitional phase from the old iCloud to the new iCloud (I think Apple do refer to it as iCloud Drive in places but that's just one aspect of it), Dropbox is an alternative that might work for you. It's pretty much platform agnostic, working with 1Password pretty much on all platforms. The Wi-Fi Sync is certainly an option too though.

    What I'd recommend is disabling iCloud sync first on all your machines and devices. Then on your Mac go to System Preferences > iCloud > Manage... and delete any 1Password data from there. As you haven't upgraded to iCloud Drive that ought to take care of all 1Password data and it won't harm the local copy of your vault.

    Lastly, your backups. They are zip files that contain a copy of your encrypted vault as a sqlite database file (how we store the vaults locally from 1Password 4). They are as secure as your vault is as they're merely snapshots of your vault.

    I hope that helps but if you have any more questions post away :smile:

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