[Feature request] Personal sync adapters

dambrisco

Hey,

I'm writing this because while I've been wanting to move to 1Password for a while now thanks to stellar reviews from friends, I haven't been willing to make the leap without Google Drive sync support. Given what I've read about the numerous issues surrounding that feature, I've got an alternative suggestion that I believe might be a better fit overall.

Let us, as users and community developers, build custom/personal sync adapters that can be plugged into our accounts. Now, I'm sure this sounds crazy on its face, but hear me out:

I'd suggest specifically simply allowing the user to select this sync method and then set a URL (likely either a RESTful object or an RPC root) that would need to comply with an interface provided by 1Password. Doing so enables users to create any variety of integrations, thereby removing that particular burden from 1Password while also facilitating adoption by organizations and individuals with security concerns not currently met by existing options.

There are certainly drawbacks here - in particular, some very serious risks to users lacking technical knowledge - but I'd venture these could be mitigated using UI/UX gimmicks similar to the Android Developer Options trigger or simply some very scary warning screens/boxes.

I realize this is a stretch, but I'm hoping it might be less of a stretch than 1Password creating and maintaining the integrations themselves.

Cheers,
Dan

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1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided

Ben

Hi @dambrisco,

Thanks for taking the time to write in with this suggestion, and for providing your detailed justification for the idea. While I appreciate the concept, we’re not currently considering additions or improvements in the realm of 3rd party sync. We’ve worked for years with 3rd party sync providers, and at the end of the day it just simply isn’t feasible to offer the level of quality and experience that we want 1Password to provide. We do of course still offer the ability to configure syncing with iCloud and Dropbox for those that want it and are comfortable with it, but we’re only able to provide limited support in those areas (specifically these two documents: If you're having trouble syncing with Dropbox & If you're having trouble syncing with iCloud). We list these as advanced options in our documentation.

As you can see from the aforementioned guides there are a number of oddities that can occur, and the services are a bit of a black box. We can see what is or isn’t happening, but have very little insight as to why, or ability to fix it when there is a problem. It is a really poor experience to have to tell someone “sorry; this is a problem with iCloud. Contact Apple.”

The best 1Password experience comes from 1Password membership, where we provide the full service — from the software to the sync mechanism. We simply can’t provide reliable and consistent sharing features (which are an extension of sync, in some respects) with the 3rd party services that are out there. If there is a problem, which is much more rare, we have control over the whole process from beginning to end.

Something like you are proposing would only further inflame the types of issues that we built 1Password.com to avoid. Not only would customers be dealing with 3rd party sync providers, but also with 3rd party sync plugin developers. The very technically minded crowd might not mind, but certainly the vast majority of the audience, while they may think they want to sync with Google Drive for example, probably doesn’t want to deal with that level of complexity and fragility.

Our focus right now is on making 1Password.com the very best offering we can. I understand you may not agree with those priorities, but I hope you can see our perspective.

Thank you.

Ben