Best syncing method
Hello, I am a new 1Password user. I have a Mac at home, an iPhone, an iPad, and a Windows computer at work. Obviously, it sounds like using DropBox is the best synching method for me. However, my only issue is that my work computer is behind a firewall that blocks access to Dropbox, and most every other cloud service.
Would I be able to use the iCloud synching for my Apple devices (or even WiFi synching would work), then save my database onto a flash drive to copy onto my work Windows 7 computer?
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Greetings @attrapereves,
Given cloud options are out for keeping your personal and work machines I think the best way forward will be a combination of Wi-Fi and Folder Sync. I'll detail my thinking and we'll see what you make of it :smile:
Wi-Fi Sync will allow you to sync your two iOS devices to the Mac. They will sync when 1Password is open on both the Mac and iOS device. One Mac can sync with multiple iOS devices but we recommend not trying to use the iOS device as a bridge as there can be an impact of doing so over time. It's much better to just sync them to the Mac in my opinion.
This just leaves the tricky nature of the work machine running Windows. What I would recommend is using the flash drive and have 1Password use Folder Sync, saving directly to the flash drive. OS X will notify 1Password when the drive is connected and when it isn't so 1Password doesn't do anything silly when the flash drive isn't available. Now what 1Password for Mac saves to the flash drive is a sync container. When it is present 1Password for Mac will inspect it and merge any differences. If it doesn't get to see it for a while that's okay. It might mean it has to merge more but its absence or presence isn't an issue. Now 1Password for Windows is different. In many ways it's a lot more like 1Password 3 for Mac in that the Agile Keychain isn't the sync container but the actual vault. 1Password for Windows reads and writes to it directly and if you are going to use Folder Sync and a flash drive you want to be aware of this. Here is why. Imagine you copy the Agile Keychain from the flash drive to your work computer and you make a number of changes to that copy. You forget to copy it back and then you proceed to make a number of changes on your Mac too. Now you have two copies of an Agile Keychain with changes in both. At this point it gets a bit tricker. One way to avoid this is if you only have 1Password for Windows read and write to the copy that's on the flash drive. If you do that then 1Password for Windows and 1Password for Mac will remain synchronised as both are only using a single Agile Keychain.
So how do you feel about this particular workflow? you seem open to the idea of the flash drive already so it's really about how practical it feels to keep the Agile Keychain on the flash drive.
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The method you mentioned is almost exactly what I did. I am syncing my iDevices with WiFi and folder synched the database onto a flash drive.
I will probably never make changes to my database at work. But if I make database changes at home (then sync with USB drive), can I delete the database from my work Windows machine while 1Password is closed, copy everything over, then reopen it? The 1password.agilekeychain folder, can I just delete that, then copy it from the flash drive or will this cause the 1Password application to have a hissy fit?
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Hi @attrapereves,
If you don't tend to make changes at work or are willing to accept that as a restriction then you won't have any issues at all. My concerns are only related to bi-directional sync and wanting to make sure you never reached a stage where you needed to merge changes from two Agile Keychains. Your understanding is spot on, 1Password for Windows won't care if you copy over one version with another there should be no tantrums to avoid :smile: I believe all you would need to do is lock the vault so that 1Password isn't accessing it and you should be fine. Should you find otherwise please do let us know though.
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