Primary Vault on multiple devices & sharing

Grindelwald

I have synched my primary vault sitting on Mac1 using dropbox with my iPhone. Now I would like to share my primary vault on Mac1 with another Mac2 not loosing the synch mechanism with my iPhone for Mac1. Mac1 and Mac2 are not residing in the same iCloud. How could I do this best? Is a secondary vault on Mac1 necessary to do this or could I stick to my primary vault?

littlebobbytables

Hi @Grindelwald,

Now this second Mac, does it have a vault already in place or is a fresh copy of 1Password simply awaiting syncing with your other devices?

Dropbox will allow you to sync as many devices as you wish so if you simply want to bring this second Mac into sync with your other two then all you need to do is point 1Password on the second Mac to Dropbox when you configure it for the first time.

Now if I've misunderstood something then please do correct me. If you have any follow up questions do please ask :smile:

Grindelwald

Dear littlebobbytables,
many thanks for your advice. In fact both, Mac1 and Mac2 have already a vault (only one primary vault), in place. This makes the case in my view somewhat more tricky. What is a possible resolution here? Yours Grindelwald

MikeT

Hi @Grindelwald,

That depends on what you want to do, do you want to merge both vaults or do you want the vault from Mac A to be a separate vault to open on Mac B?

First thing before we proceed is to back up your 1Password vault on both Macs. To do this, open 1Password, go to the File Menu > Backup on both Macs.

Merge both vaults into one sync'ed vault

If you want to merge your data, all you have to do is sync with the same file in the Dropbox folder and 1Password will prompt about merging the vaults.

To start, open 1Password, go to the 1Password Menu > Preferences > Sync. Select Dropbox for the primary vault and then select the same data file that you're syncing from Mac A. 1Password will prompt you about finding an existing vault and you can merge both vaults into one.

Keep the Mac A's vault as a secondary vault on Mac B

If you don't want to merge your data and want to open the Mac A vault as a secondary vault on Mac B, you can simply open your Dropbox folder, double-click on the original vault file, and 1Password will open up asking if you want to import the vault as a secondary vault.

I hope this helps, let me know.

Grindelwald

Dear Mike,
many thanks for your clarifications. Just to recap what you recommend:

My assumptions is that I want to open Mac B as secondary vault on Mac A (just the other way around, but that is the same situation I think). Both Macs do not reside on same Dropbox nor on the dame iCloud.

Based on your advice I first of all share a dedicated 1Password folder on the Dropbox on Mac A with the Dropbox on Mac B. In this shared 1Password I store both vault files from Mac A and Mac B. When being on Mac A I double-click on the original vault of 1Password of Mac A and I get asked if I want to import the vault from Mac B. Correct? I of course could do the same thing on Mac B' side if I wished.

The only thing I have to do though is then to go to my iPhone and to change the location of my vault (from Mac A) as I have moved it to the shared folder.

Please let me know if I got this correctly,

thank you! Yours Grindelwald

littlebobbytables

Hi @Grindelwald,

Now you are almost there but there is something 1Password does that will mean you cannot keep the two actual .agilekeychains in the same folder. By default, when you sync a primary vault it is named 1Password.agilekeychain and of course what you can't do is keep two files or folders with identical names in the same place.

So say you share a folder titled something like shared-vaults or whatever you decide on (the choice is completely yours) then inside there you want to create two folders. You can name them something like Mac A and Mac B or whatever you wish, but titled so you can easily identify which is which. You would then point 1Password to those folders when syncing and it will create the 1Password.agilekeychain in there.

Then the rest is as you believe and yes, you can have both accessing both vaults but each having the other Mac's vault as its secondary. I still don't know a nice clean way of saying that so I hope you get it.

The best sequence is to disable Dropbox sync first on your iPhone and Mac A. Remove the existing 1Password.agilekeychain so it doesn't confuse matters, set up Dropbox as above and then set up Dropbox on your iOS device, making sure to select the right .agilekeychain.

If you have any follow up questions please do ask.

Grindelwald

Wonderful explanation - even for a Swiss totally understandable. Thank you very much, I will let you know if it worked once I am done, yours Grindelwald

littlebobbytables

Nice try but I haven't met a Swiss whose English wasn't bordering on flawless and don't get me started on the Dutch! Impeccable English, they shame most of the UK :wink:

Do let us know how you get along @Grindelwald and if you have any questions please do ask.

Oh and I'm from the UK so it's okay for me to state that we're being schooled in our native language by all the bilingual Europeans out there (because we are).