Restructuring Vaults for Self/Spouse
Based on what I've read, I set up my vaults as follows: to work for myself and spouse:
Primary (shared primary between self/spouse)
Self
Spouse
Business
Other
More Other
We both find that we want to use Primary and (Self or Spouse) all the time, and hate moving back and forth. Primary is probably better called "Joint" for us...
Given the inability to really search multiple vaults when just browsing, (or in windows you have even more issues), I'm thinking of:
Primary Self (which will be all of the Vault Self and all of the Vault Primary)
Spouse (Primary Spouse)
etc.
Primary Spouse (which will be all of the Vault Spouse and all of the Vault Primary)
Self (Primary Self)
etc.
A lot more duplication, as the former Primary is now in both, but probably easier to use for us.
The real question, given this is shared in dropbox - what is the easiest way to move from A to B?
I know how to move entire vaults (i.e. I can copy/move all of the former Primary to Self and Spouse), and I'm also aware of the issue with the fact that now that there are TWO primaries (vs a shared one), I have to watch file naming up on dropbox - instead or primary.agilebits, i need to make sure it is spouse/primary.agilebits and self/primary.agilebits
All that said, I have to manage my windows copy and its pointers to dropbox, my spouse copy and its pointers, my copy and its pointers. I have to do this such that I don't overwrite anything (yes, I'll backup first).
Also, I have to manage naming. i.e. do i copy primary to spouse, or spouse to primary? And do i do so after disconnecting from dropbox so i don't then sync that to my own primary?
I guess in a nutshell - what is recommended to make this kind of change? I can probably do this myself, but if there is a "hey this is simpler" way, I'd love to know it.
One big negative to this change is what was formally shared primary will now get out of sync, since it will be in two places (and this is the reason I did A in the first place), but I don't know what else to do given the inability to use multiple vaults in the way I want vs. the way designed.
Comments
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I guess I need a tl:dr -
Multiple vaults have limitations, and seem hard to change to meet your design structure. Any links, places to look, tips to restructure vaults?
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Hi @Seeker,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I know I've been reading and re-reading your posts and not feeling amazingly confident about what to write.
So the whole motivation is the lack of a global search and switching between vaults is a big annoyance and you're looking for something better. It isn't as much of an issue for some of the secondaries, it really comes down to your personal and the couple vault (currently primary).
Rather than what I think you were suggesting, how about the following?
Your Mac.
- Primary vault (used to be Self vault)
- Couple vault (used to be Primary) and shared with spouse
Their Mac.
- Primary vault (used to be Spouse's vault)
- Couple vault (used to be Primary) and shared with spouse
If we initialise your Macs in this way then right at the start they're no better, you still have two vaults which isn't much use. The difference is you copy the entire contents of the Couple vault to your Primary. Now when you open 1Password your primary is the combination of everything from the two main vaults and that, for the most part bypasses the main hurdles.
Now in this proposal you still have the Couple vault and if either of you ever need to change or add a shared item you always do it in the Couple vault. As adding and modifying tend to happen far more infrequently it shouldn't feel as onerous. If you make changes in the Couple vault those changes are synced as the couple vault is shared and instead of worrying which ones do I need to update in my Primary, you simply copy everything from the Couple vault to the primary. Any changes are pushed over and if an item hasn't changed it makes no difference.
We could even show you how to easily add a tag to everything in the Couple vault so you can easily identify an item that needs to be edited from the Couple vault or if it doesn't work when you try and use it from the primary vault may mean the other has updated it. The tag also means if you ever want to remove everything stored in the Couple vault from your primary vault then it's easy to select that group.
How does that sound? We can get into the details if that sounds okay to you. Just to warn you, anything that involves altering the primary vault does mean starting over as while you can easily remove and re-add secondary vaults the primary vault still has a privileged position in 1Password.
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Thanks for reading my long message, and responding. I think you have a good understanding of what (and why) I'm asking this.
Your proposal will help with the "syncing" issue of the Couple Vault, and yes, it probably wouldn't be onerous to make sure any changes got made there vs in the "copy" within Primary.
And yes, redoing the Primaries basically means tear it all down and rebuild, but at least you can create the Couple Vault, save all vaults, then recreate the Primaries and put the Self/Spouse vaults there. And then put back all the minor secondary vaults that indeed don't cause consternation like this issue.
We could even show you how to easily add a tag to everything in the Couple vault so you can easily identify an item that needs to be edited from the Couple vault or if it doesn't work when you try and use it from the primary vault may mean the other has updated it. The tag also means if you ever want to remove everything stored in the Couple vault from your primary vault then it's easy to select that group.
This sounds intriguing - anything that will help identify what needs syncing will help this setup.
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@Seeker: Sometimes conceptualizing things can be difficult when there is so much flexibility. That's kind of where I am with tags myself. But the flexibility just means that they can be used to solve a lot of organizational problems.
Tags, in general, are good for grouping things in 1Password without actually changing their category or data. Now, how you use them is entirely up to you; but the best part is that if you change your mind about one, you don't have to go through and change all the items with that tag manually; you can just delete it or rename it.
I think a good starting point for your particular situation would be to take a look at this tip: Using Tags to track personal information given to websites. I actually get much more granular with this, to go so far as having tags for specific cards, so I don't have to go through every account that has some card attached to it when only one of them has changed.
Similarly to adding tags to show personal information you've associated with a particular website login at a glance in 1Password, you could tag items as 'his', 'hers', or 'ours' -- something along those lines -- to keep track of what is what. Of course, you can be more or less specific, or just name the tags whatever makes sense to you ('update', 'shared', etc.)
Anyway, some food for thought, and you can always experiment a bit once the actual vault moving is done, because tags are completely non-destructive. I hope this helps! :)
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