Migrating from iCloud to a 1Password account on iOS

Sidney San Martín
Sidney San Martín
Community Member
in iOS

How can I migrate from iCloud sync to a 1Password account, on an iOS device?

I'm trying to help a family member, who has 1Password for iOS but did not have 1Password for Mac, migrate to a 1Password account and get access to their passwords from their Mac. The migration instructions go over using a Mac to do the migration, but only describes how to move entries one at a time on iOS.

I'm surprised. I assumed that there'd be an option to migrate the whole database as part of adding the 1Password account.

1Password Version: 6.4.4
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: macOS 10.11
Sync Type: iCloud

Comments

  • Sidney San Martín
    Sidney San Martín
    Community Member

    Quick update — data, uh, finds a way. Here're the steps I worked out to switch from iCloud sync among some iOS devices to a 1Password account with iOS devices and a Mac. It was rough, so let me know if they can be simplified:

    1. Install 1Password on the Mac and sign into the new 1Password account.
    2. In the Advanced tab of Preferences, turn on "Allow creation of vaults outside of 1Password accounts", which automatically creates a local vault. Give it a password (the vault is temporary, so don't worry too much about it).
    3. Set up iCloud syncing for the new vault with the Apple account which the iOS devices currently sync to. [In retrospect, I think I could've used WLAN syncing instead of iCloud for this step.]
    4. After the sync finishes, click "All Items" in the sidebar. You should see all of the existing data.
    5. "Select All".
    6. From the Item menu or the contextual (right click) menu, choose Share → Move → your new 1Password account's vault.
    7. Wait until the current vault is empty.
    8. Head back to Preferences and uncheck "Allow creation of vaults outside of 1Password accounts". Allow it to delete the now-empty vault. Only continue if you're confident that the move worked. Spot-check some important logins, credit cards, etc. on the Mac.
    9. Grab an iOS device. Go to Settings → Advanced and tap "Erase All 1Password Data". Tap through the prompts.
    10. Relaunch 1Password and sign into your 1Password account. All of your data should be there.
    11. Reconfigure any app settings (like Touch ID), because they were erased a few steps ago.
    12. Repeat from "Grab an iOS device…" for each additional device.
    13. On any iOS device, visit Settings → Advanced and tap "Erase iCloud Data".

    For me, there were also steps like:

    • Sign into the 1Password account on iOS and try to figure out how to bulk-move data into its vault.
    • Spend a while trying to figure out how to delete the old local vault on iOS after adding the populated 1Password account.
    • Deauthorize the duplicate devices via the website now that they've been reset (making sure to delete the first one out of each pair of duplicates, since they look identical).

    In my dreams, the process works like this:

    1. Sign into the new 1Password account on each device. If a device already has data, accept the option to merge it into the 1Password account and delete it from iCloud or Dropbox.

    P.S. I loved web.1password.com. The overall design, signup process, and the emergency PDF are all amazing.

  • Ben
    Ben

    Hi @Sidney San Martín

    Yep -- you are unfortunately correct -- the process is a bit involved right now. We're working on ways to cut those steps way down, but for now it sounds like you've found about the best way to do it without moving each item manually.

    Ideally in the future we'd have a way on iOS to copy a standalone vault seamlessly into a 1Password.com vault.

    Thanks!

    Ben

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