Request for OpVault on Android [supported in 1Password 7]

dplatonoff

I wish I would've known about the lack of support of opvault in android before updating to the Windows 7 beta

It's common sense to always stage and validate your usage scenarios through the entire product chain before you plunge into daily driving a beta :). Oh, and back your data up. And floss nightly.

AGAlumB

@dplatonoff: You're not wrong, but I'd be lying if I said I was as fastidious about these things as I should be myself. I've definitely gotten myself into a similar bind. :(

I wish I would've known about the lack of support of opvault in android before updating to the Windows 7 beta (it's been reported since 2016!).

@titan0g: I'm sorry this came as a bit of an unpleasant surprise to you when trying the beta. In 2016 1Password for Windows supported AgileKeychain, so it wasn't a blocker at that time. But it's something that's on our radar for version 7 because of situations like this.

Without WLAN sync Now I have to forcefully use Dropbox or pay for 1password.com membership. Both options won't work for me and a lot of people I know with the same setup. I guess I'll have to manually update all my new data to an old vault and return to v.4

We'd love to hear from them if that's the case. We're not getting much feedback from folks who depend on WLAN Server exclusively. Can you tell me what you mean by "forcefully use Dropbox"? 1Password.com is the best option, and gets you a lot of features and benefits that you wouldn't otherwise, so I think it's rather worth a cup of coffee a month. But we're always interested to hear about different people's use cases. :)

titan0g

We'd love to hear from them if that's the case. We're not getting much feedback from folks who depend on WLAN Server exclusively. Can you tell me what you mean by "forcefully use Dropbox"? 1Password.com is the best option, and gets you a lot of features and benefits that you wouldn't otherwise, so I think it's rather worth a cup of coffee a month. But we're always interested to hear about different people's use cases. :)

Dropbox isn't an option for me due company policy and privacy matters, basically can't have the vault hosted elsewhere even if it is encrypted. 1Password.com also falls under that policy unfortunately and I really have no use for most of the added features it brings to the table, so that's why I've been waiting for v7 and I plan to get the standalone version.

WLAN Sync also works wonders with air gapped networks ;)

damiencateau

Hi there,

I just want to add my voice to the many that request the support of local OPVault on the Android client (not synced via DropBox). This is a must-have for me; without it, I will (regretfully) not upgrade to 1Password 7 on Windows

As an aside: what is the difference between DropBox sync and, for example, a Google Drive sync? To my (non-technical) eyes, both services provide exactly the same functionnality (sync of files and folders between devices), so what makes DropBox different?

Thanks in andvance for the response!

Edit: typos.

AGAlumB

Dropbox isn't an option for me due company policy and privacy matters, basically can't have the vault hosted elsewhere even if it is encrypted. 1Password.com also falls under that policy unfortunately and I really have no use for most of the added features it brings to the table, so that's why I've been waiting for v7 and I plan to get the standalone version. WLAN Sync also works wonders with air gapped networks ;)

@titan0g: Thanks for your input! It's greatly appreciated. Definitely helps to get a sense for the different use cases people have in mind. :chuffed:

AGAlumB

I just want to add my voice to the many that request the support of local OPVault on the Android client (not synced via DropBox). This is a must-have for me; without it, I will (regretfully) not upgrade to 1Password 7 on Windows

@damiencateau: Thank you! :)

As an aside: what is the difference between DropBox sync and, for example, a Google Drive sync? To my (non-technical) eyes, both services provide exactly the same functionnality (sync of files and folders between devices), so what makes DropBox different? Thanks in andvance for the response!

Dropbox, in my experience, is far more reliable and ubiquitous. Google Drive is pretty darn good on Android, I'll give you that. But on Windows it's been not-quite-dependable, and on macOS...well, I don't use it there anymore. I literally couldn't tell you why this is the case, only that I just haven't had sync issues with it for the most part (except when I do things I know I shouldn't).

dplatonoff

Dropbox, in my experience, is far more reliable and ubiquitous.

@brenty, Dropbox heyday was years ago, back when you guys first introduced sync support. It was definitely the service to go to with no major alternatives (although ranked on sheer popularity, one might wonder why you overlooked Rapidshare and Mega Upload :).

These days though, does anyone actually use Dropbox? People tend to flock to what their OS offers seamless support for, and that's OneDrive and iCloud. And those platform agnostic stick with Google Drive.

Cosworth

We'd love to hear from them if that's the case. We're not getting much feedback from folks who depend on WLAN Server exclusively. Can you tell me what you mean by "forcefully use Dropbox"? 1Password.com is the best option, and gets you a lot of features and benefits that you wouldn't otherwise, so I think it's rather worth a cup of coffee a month. But we're always interested to hear about different people's use cases>

I use the WLAN exclusively, as this was the biggest selling point in adopting 1Password. Data breaches have become far too common and i simply do not trust cloud sync with any provider. Sorry, but i will not upgrade to v7 without local support of OPVault on Android.

AGAlumB

Dropbox heyday was years ago, back when you guys first introduced sync support. It was definitely the service to go to with no major alternatives (although ranked on sheer popularity, one might wonder why you overlooked Rapidshare and Mega Upload :).

@dplatonoff: APIs. :sunglasses:

These days though, does anyone actually use Dropbox? People tend to flock to what their OS offers seamless support for, and that's OneDrive and iCloud. And those platform agnostic stick with Google Drive.

I'm pretty sure that millions of people use Dropbox. If you want to get into a cloud storage holy war though, this isn't the place to do it. :tongue:

AGAlumB

I use the WLAN exclusively, as this was the biggest selling point in adopting 1Password. Data breaches have become far too common and i simply do not trust cloud sync with any provider. Sorry, but i will not upgrade to v7 without local support of OPVault on Android.

@Cosworth: Thanks for letting us know. I get where you're coming from, but it's worth noting that a data breach of 1Password.com wouldn't net anyone any actual data, since it's all encrypted with keys only in the possession of each individual user. Apples and oranges, when it comes to that comparison. Cheers! :)

dplatonoff

APIs. :sunglasses:

Totally!

I'm pretty sure that millions of people use Dropbox. If you want to get into a cloud storage holy war though, this isn't the place to do it.

@brenty, what I mean to say is that for me as a customer, it's odd that you chose to continue supporting a random cloud sync service out of many, yet dropped local file system support. I mean it's files, how hard can it be? :). Makes you think it was a strategic decision to nudge the users towards 1password.com subscription. Totally understandable, gotta pay the bills, but you kind of left us hanging here. Can you please get back to the point where we'd go

damiencateau

Thanks @brenty for the fast response. However, you don't really answer my question regarding the difference between Dropbox and other sync providers:

Dropbox, in my experience, is far more reliable and ubiquitous. Google Drive is pretty darn good on Android, I'll give you that. But on Windows it's been not-quite-dependable, and on macOS...well, I don't use it there anymore. I literally couldn't tell you why this is the case, only that I just haven't had sync issues with it for the most part (except when I do things I know I shouldn't).

If I understand You correctly, Dropbox sync doesn't do anything special, it's only the preferred method of sync due to the state of file syncing aroudn 2010. If so, it is even more mesmerizing that the Android app does not allow for local sync outside of the Dropbox folder.

If, however, there is something special about Dropbox (_ie _it's not just a sync of local files, but something more esoteric), I'd really love to know what makes it so specal (as far as you can share with the public, naturally).

damiencateau

Hello again!

I've been browsing through the fourm, and found this thread (https://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/88616/on-this-pc-instead-of-on-dropbox), in wich you (@brenty) state:

Ultimately 1Password isn't communicating with Dropbox; it's just syncing it inside that folder.

Given, the discussion was about a problem with the Windows 7 beta, and not the Android version. But if Dropbox sync is just a regular file sync, I really don't understand why it seems so complicated to allow the Android app to sync with a local OPVault...

AGAlumB

Hello again! I've been browsing through the fourm, and found this thread (https://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/88616/on-this-pc-instead-of-on-dropbox), in wich you (@brenty) state:

Ultimately 1Password isn't communicating with Dropbox; it's just syncing it inside that folder.

Given, the discussion was about a problem with the Windows 7 beta, and not the Android version. But if Dropbox sync is just a regular file sync, I really don't understand why it seems so complicated to allow the Android app to sync with a local OPVault...

@damiencateau: Good question, but you already answered it. That's exactly right: 1Password for Android does not natively support OPVault, but we added functionality for the app to write OPVault data directly to the Dropbox APIs, due to popular request. We'll be going back and rearchitecting things to use OPVault instead of AgileKeychain going forward, but this is not functionality that the app has ever had; it's something that we'll have to build from scratch.

Thanks @brenty for the fast response. However, you don't really answer my question regarding the difference between Dropbox and other sync providers:
If I understand You correctly, Dropbox sync doesn't do anything special, it's only the preferred method of sync due to the state of file syncing aroudn 2010. If so, it is even more mesmerizing that the Android app does not allow for local sync outside of the Dropbox folder.

I'm not prepared to go into a whole thing about cross-platform APIs, but suffice to say that Dropbox has had what we needed from the start and has been solid for us ever since. I don't think there's a compelling reason to drop it. And as far as developing, testing, and supporting additional sync methods? That's just it; a decade ago Dropbox was the best option we had. We have a better one now in 1Password.com, so why would we bother with others, especially given how little interest there's been over the course of years? There simply hasn't been overwhelming requests for one specific sync service, and we cannot support all of them.

Google Drive is definitely the winner in that regard on Android, but it would not be a wise use of our resources to invest in that for one platform...and we don't get many requests at all for it on others, for good reason.Same goes for OneDrive, which is a popular request from Windows users. But when 1Password is a cross-platform app with a solid first party solution, it isn't worthwhile to invest in other 3rd parties across the line. It's 2018 and this problem has been solved. I know that's probably not what you want to hear, but we can't support everything out there, and the only service we actually have any way to fix if something breaks is our own. That's nothing against Dropbox. It simply isn't designed around 1Password, as it has a more general target use case.

If, however, there is something special about Dropbox (_ie _it's not just a sync of local files, but something more esoteric), I'd really love to know what makes it so specal (as far as you can share with the public, naturally).

Hopefully my comments above help shed some light on the fact that writing to OPVault files isn't something the app currently knows how to do, but definitely let me know if you have any other questions about 1Password. :)

AGAlumB

what I mean to say is that for me as a customer, it's odd that you chose to continue supporting a random cloud sync service out of many,

@dplatonoff: I hear you, but it isn't random. Dropbox was the only viable 3rd party option at a time when we a) needed a solid sync service and b) couldn't build one ourselves.

yet dropped local file system support.

We didn't. :)

I mean it's files, how hard can it be? :).

You should try it. ;)

Makes you think it was a strategic decision to nudge the users towards 1password.com subscription. Totally understandable, gotta pay the bills, but you kind of left us hanging here. Can you please get back to the point where we'd go

If that were true, we wouldn't have built local vault support into the new Windows app at all. It's been a lot of work already and it isn't finished yet. To be clear, we do believe that 1Password.com is the best option for most people. We just recognize it isn't the perfect fit for everyone. And while we cannot make 1Password the perfect fit for everyone either, we are happy to focus on things that to the most good for the greatest number of 1Password users.

So, I guess the question is, what is it that you're after exactly? This discussion is ostensibly about OPVault support in 1Password for Android, and, as I mentioned already multiple times, 1Password 7 will support OPVault when it's complete. I don't know what we're arguing about anymore. :lol:

damiencateau

Hello @brenty ,

Thank you for taking the time to answer in such lengthy details. To answer your last question

what is it that you're after exactly?

I'll definitely be happy with local OPVault support on Android. Leave the hassle of syncing said files to the user in the way that best fit their preferences / constraints.

AGAlumB

Thank you for taking the time to answer in such lengthy details. To answer your last question

@damiencateau: You're very welcome! And likewise, thanks for bearing with me. :chuffed:

I'll definitely be happy with local OPVault support on Android. Leave the hassle of syncing said files to the user in the way that best fit their preferences / constraints.

In general, we don't want to offer features that are inherently a hassle for most users. But we do want full support for OPVault in 1Password for Android, and then it's up to you what you do with it. Cheers! :)

dplatonoff

Looks like multiple nerves were struck. On both sides.

I don't know what we're arguing about anymore.

@brenty, I don't think anyone's arguing anymore since we've learned that OPVaults are near. But all those pent up emotions come rushing out into the offtopic territory... Most of them are happy now (or at least hopeful).

Pleasing the DIY crowd is hard (if not impossible), and it's mighty fine of you for even trying. The fact that you as a closed source product managed to amass a following that strong among them is pretty remarkable.

But the real news of late is the promise of self-hosted 1P for Business. Because, let's admit it, a lot of people have been trying to build a poor man's version of THAT!

AGAlumB

Looks like multiple nerves were struck. On both sides.

@dplatonoff: I don't know about that. I'm in a great mood. Super excited about version 7! :chuffed:

@brenty, I don't think anyone's arguing anymore since we've learned that OPVaults are near. But all those pent up emotions come rushing out into the offtopic territory... Most of them are happy now (or at least hopeful).

That makes sense. I'm sorry for misunderstanding. I think we will all be happy once all this good stuff ships. :)

Pleasing the DIY crowd is hard (if not impossible), and it's mighty fine of you for even trying. The fact that you as a closed source product managed to amass a following that strong among them is pretty remarkable. But the real news of late is the promise of self-hosted 1P for Business. Because, let's admit it, a lot of people have been trying to build a poor man's version of THAT!

Amen. We can't please everyone, but we enjoy the challenge of delighting as many people as we can manage. And while we certainly have setbacks from time to time, overall it's a good feeling because we're moving forward. Thanks for your passion and encouragement! :blush:

AGAlumB

Just a quick update here: We've released a new beta of 1Password for Android with full OPVault support a few hours ago. If you're interested, sign up for the beta if you're in a hurry to use this feature. Cheers! :)

shaiguitar

+1 to this thread (disappointing - no local file sync). Being able to edit my phone's password data should not be a pro only feature. This is exacerbated by the fact that I can't even edit the data manually w/out a pro payment option. Since the app itself is not free and this was paid for, you'd think this incredibly basic functionality would be available.

AGAlumB

@shaiguitar: As I mentioned in my comments immediately preceding yours (in the thread, not chronologically! heh) OPVault support for local folder sync (the last piece of the puzzle) was added in May 2018. I'm going to close this thread because it's super old -- 1Password for Android added support for OPVault nearly a year ago.

We're not able to sustainably make software and give it away for free; we're not willing to sell ads, sell user data, or sell out to outside investment. But if you need help with something else, please feel free to start a new thread and @-mention me so I can help. :)