a way to sync between separate iCloud accounts?

scottyo3921

It seemed to me that my wife and I were syncing the same vault over iCloud, even after she got her own Apple ID and split from mine. But it seems I am wrong about this, and all iCloud syncing I observed occurred before we split her off to her own Apple ID. Anyway, I'd really like iCloud syncing between us if possible, on up-to-date Yosemite Macs and up-to-date iOS 5.3 iPhones and iPads.

From another discussion:

Apple does not offer a means of sharing data between iCloud accounts, so unless everyone in your business is sharing a single Apple ID for iCloud, that won't work.

If that is true and applies to us, as it seems it surely does, can I use the following approach?

• Once in a while, have her log out of her Apple ID and log in to mine, then sync 1Password and finally get back into her own Apple ID.
• I'd do the complementary login/out to pick up her new entries.

I'd just make a recurring Calendar appointment to remind me and would also do it right after any critical entries were made.

This seems it would work, if Agilebits doesn't follow Apple's usual practices and delete all your local data when you log out of iCloud (thanks, Apple), and if it will merge the entries to the initially one-and-only, but now branched, vault.

Does anyone know whether it would work?

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1Password Version: 5.3
Extension Version: 4.3.1
OS Version: 10.10.3
Sync Type: iCloud

hawkmoth

I'm afraid I can't answer the question about loging in and out of iCloud accounts, but I am prompted ask whether you and your wife are opposed to using Dropbox. You'd be able to share without the gymnastics if you switched.

scottyo3921

We used DropBox for a few years (before getting 1Password), then found it was chewing up CPU cycles like nobody's business, running my Macs hot. So we stopped. I had considered it for syncing, but since I already paid Agilebits a discounted price for a Mac App Store copy only a month or two after buying their web version--just so I could use iCloud sync--I would like to pursue this course first.

Thanks for the idea, however.

Drew_AG

Hi @scottyo3921,

The other discussion you found is correct - iCloud does not let you share your synced 1Password data with a different iCloud account.

Now as far as occasionally switching to your own Apple ID on your wife's Mac or iOS device, to be perfectly honest, that would cause some problems. Syncing/merging your 1Password vaults might work as expected, but there's a chance you'll run into some problems at some point, because each time the Apple ID/iCloud account is switched, 1Password would need to treat the two vaults (yours and hers) as having never synced before. It would need to go through full conflict resolution every time you did that, meaning every field of every item in the vaults would have to be verified in order to determine which data to keep, in case there have been changes. That has the potential to generate conflicts in your data, which is something that doesn’t happen with an ongoing sync connection.

But that's actually not the main issue, which is that your Apple ID/iCloud account is used by a lot of different apps and services on your Mac and iOS devices, not just 1Password. That includes (but is not limited to) apps such as Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Photos, Reminders, and possibly some other third party apps aside from 1Password. Switching between different iCloud accounts could cause some major issues with the data from those apps, so I don't recommend trying that.

If you and your wife want to sync/share your 1Password data with each other, the best way to do that is going to be Dropbox sharing. I'm not sure why you had problems with Dropbox in the past, but that's something that may have been fixed in Dropbox since you last used it, so it might be worth giving it another shot. (For what it's worth, I use Dropbox to sync my 1Password data and have never noticed a problem like that with the Dropbox app on my Mac.)

I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you about that! If you have more questions, please let us know - we're always happy to help. :)

scottyo3921

Drew_AG, many thanks for the detailed explanation. Knowing WHY in cases like this really helps me make decisions. Agilebits' support is tops, right up there with Apple's own support..

I think I'll go back and try DropBox again, since it sounds like the path of least resistance.

Thank you for the excellent advice.

And I hope someday Apple expands Family Sharing to encompass other (optional for the user) areas as it does with credit cards and calendars right now, as well as CloudKit API access for developers like you folks.

Vee_AG

Hi @scottyo3921,

On behalf of Drew, you're very welcome! We are all for helping our customers make informed decisions about their sensitive data.

Like Drew, I also use Dropbox sync, and I find it works like a dream. If you have CPU issues again while using it with 1Password, let us know and we'll see what we can do to help troubleshoot.

And I hope someday Apple expands Family Sharing to encompass other (optional for the user) areas as it does with credit cards and calendars right now, as well as CloudKit API access for developers like you folks.

Thanks--we hope so, too! What's good for our users is good for us, as well. :) Cheers!