Using 1Password on Mac host and VMware Fusion Windows virtual machine.

ian_

The discussions that I have found concerning using 1Password both on Mac host and a Windows VM are old (and closed). The advice that I have seen is to use Dropbox for syncing and not VM Shared Folders. I use Dropbox extensively and have just under 6 GB of content which would be duplicated if I use this approach - and a significant amount of that is shared with other users. Presumably, I would also need to turn the Shared Folders feature off, at least for Dropbox, which is not convenient for using with other software.
Can I change to using an alternative store location for my 1Password database, rather than Dropbox, that I might use less, such as iCloud? What other options are there and is setup straightforward?
Also, when installing Dropbox on my Windows VM, downloading with Internet Explorer, I was unable to get 1password (installer? website?) to recognise the browser - it offered to install the extension for Safari then, if other browsers were chosen, it was for other OS X browsers, not IE. I had, at this stage, installed 1Password for Windows, but not entered licence details or, of course, attached to a database.
Last point - which of the options - I am new to 1PW, I have used 1PW before, Restore... should I be following?
Help or advice appreciated, questions for clarification expected!

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1Password Version: 5.3.2 and 4
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: 10.10.3 and Win 8.1
Sync Type: currently Dropbox

LauraR

@ian_ - The best way to share 1Password data between your two partitions would be with Dropbox. Your 1Password data will not take 6GB storage. As an example I have over 300 records and my 1Password folder in Dropbox is 12MB. You do not have to turn off the Shared Folders feature. In fact you can make use of this feature if you want to share a 1Password vault with another Dropbox user. You can also use any other cloud storage that you have available on both partitions and we have a great article on folder syncing here.

Once you have installed 1Password on your Windows partition you can then install the 1Password browser extensions through the 1Password app. There is a guide for this here.

If you decide to go with Dropbox sync when you run 1Password for the first time on the Windows partition, select that you have used 1Password before and it will find your existing 1Password data.
If you go for another sync option, then select that you are new to 1Password. Then go to Preferences> General > Choose another and navigate to the shared folder.

ian_

Thanks, @LauraR, for your speedy response. I'm adding a few more points in case this helps others who come across this post looking to address the same issue.

It's particularly helpful to know that it's OK to have VMWare Shared Folders enabled, as long as that isn't where the connection to the 1Password database is made, but rather that this is linked through an installation of Dropbox on the virtual machine, as this means various other features of using software installed only in Windows can be made use of, I think.

Of course, when I said that I had 6 GB of data in Dropbox I didn't mean only 1Password data. For the benefit of anyone who, like me, was unaware of or forgot it - Dropbox supports 'Selective Sync,' which means that in the situation that I have, when I installed Dropbox in Windows I was able to 'turn off' all syncing all folders other than the one ('syncing folder' I believe by default) where the 1Password database is located. Dropbox preferences also allow later changes to 'Selective Sync.' Perhaps worth adding that I discovered my syncing was taking a lot longer than expected because I had a number of large files loose at the root of the Dropbox folder and these were still copied until I tidied things up.

1Password now installed and working in Windows, syncing via Dropbox and not taking more space than required. So, I'm happy!

AGAlumB

@ian_: I don't use VMware myself, but this is pretty similar in Parallels too: if I open 1Password before the OS tools are loaded (which includes the Dropbox sharing, etc.) then 1Password can't find the vault (since the share hasn't yet been mounted in the filesystem).

But thank you for the Dropbox selective sync tip! I don't know why I don't use that feature more myself, so it's worth mentioning for those of us (like me) who forget about it! :lol: :+1:

I'm glad to hear that all is well, but be sure to reach out if we can be of further assistance! :)

AlexHoffmann

Just to add to this discussion:

The best and recommended way to use 1Password in a virtual machine—be it Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, or VirtualBox—is the selective sync option in Dropbox that you're using @ian_. Let me elaborate:

In our testing, some of it quite recent, we found that the current versions of the popular virtualisation software packages offer fairly stable folder sharing options. When using those to share a local folder between the host OS and the guest OS, I haven't seen any issues with my 1Password vaults. Even sharing the Dropbox folder from my Mac that contained some of my testing vaults worked worked well during the testing phases in VMware Fusion 7 and Parallels Desktop 10.

However, this setup increases the chances of producing permission errors for the shared filed/1Password vaults because both the virtualisation software and sync service software like Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, etc. need to manage the file access permissions for the files that make up a 1Password vault.

To reduce the chance of conflicts, selective sync in Dropbox is your best option, because there's only one service manipulating permissions on the host and the guest OS.

Cheers!