Local backup of my 1Password.com vault

NickM

Hi, I have recently switched from local vault to a 1Password account. So far it is working great and I am loving the 1Password X extension in Chrome. But I have one question/concern.

Obviously my 1password data is extremely important to me. I am concerned about what would happen if for example AgileBits was to go out of business or suffer a catastrophic data loss. How would I then access my 1Password data?

I was looking for some kind of "create backup archive" option in 1Password but there does no seem to be such a thing.

I see that I can export my data to disk in plaintext however this is obviously unacceptable from a security point of view. What I would hope to achieve is an encrypted local vault file.

Can you advise?

Many thanks.

---

1Password Version: 6.8.6
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: OS X
Sync Type: 1Password

AGAlumB

Obviously my 1password data is extremely important to me. I am concerned about what would happen if for example AgileBits was to go out of business or suffer a catastrophic data loss. How would I then access my 1Password data?

@NickM: Indeed, so are we! So apart from charging sustainable prices for our work so we don't go out of business, we go to a lot of trouble to ensure that there's not only a lot of redundancy on the server with regard to not only backups (and item history) but also availability, but also that 1Password data is cached locally in case the device cannot connect to the server for any reason — whether that be server downtime or a local internet issue.

I was looking for some kind of "create backup archive" option in 1Password but there does no seem to be such a thing.

You can always export to 1PIF, or copy the data to a local vault, but we're also looking at other options we could offer in the future.

I see that I can export my data to disk in plaintext however this is obviously unacceptable from a security point of view. What I would hope to achieve is an encrypted local vault file. Can you advise?

To be clear, you already have encrypted local files on your device containing your 1Password data. But if you want to save a copy to transfer somewhere else, rather than saving the export directly to a USB drive or something, you can put it in an encrypted disk image first, and then keep that wherever you want.

I hope this helps. Be sure to let me know if you have any other questions! :)

NickM

Thank you. Yes I too hope you stay in business :) I have a lot of confidence in your ability to both do that and look after our data. But of course it pays to be cautious and have eggs in other baskets.

I think perhaps exporting a 1PIF to an encrypted disk image may do the trick.

AGAlumB

Thank you. Yes I too hope you stay in business :) I have a lot of confidence in your ability to both do that and look after our data. But of course it pays to be cautious and have eggs in other baskets.

@NickM: Agreed. On all counts! :lol:

I think perhaps exporting a 1PIF to an encrypted disk image may do the trick.

Even though it is possible to get the data out, it's harder than it should be. That's not something we're happy with, so we're working on ways to make it easier. Thanks for your feedback on this! :)

occamsrazor

Exporting manually in an uncrypted format just doesn't suffice. Why doesn't it allow you to just save an encrypted backup in opvault format of all the data in 1Password.com that's cached locally?

Jacob

At the moment the functionality isn't in the app for that. We've had a lot of interest in it though, and it's something we want to look into more in the future. :)

hesspaul

I recently upgraded to 1P7 and I am on both Teams and Family accounts.

I'd really like a better solution for this important backup need, but for the time being I decided to export 1PIF to an encrypted Sparsebundle disk image that I can then store, backup, manage etc on my own.

HOWEVER, my export menu is greyed out whether I select all items or one single item. Always grey. Can you provide some help with this?

hesspaul

I figured it out, and it's bad news.

After preparing and unlocking the secure sparsebundle to export to, then:

For each vault (I have 16 and plan more), I need to individually select that vault. Then do a select-all to select all items. Then File->Export->All Items, then enter my master password, then modify the filename to contain that vault's account name and vault name, then save, then OK the dialog that tells me that none of the documents within the vault will be exported (and mourn those uncounted documents that I also wanted to back up), then select the next vault and start again.

This is not a good state of affairs. I very much look forward to a more general solution from Agilebits since this Team/Family functionality has already been in service for a good amount of time.

The real deal killer for me here is that even after going through all this effort, my currently 112 secure documents are still totally unable to be backed up.

hesspaul

One question from this. I infer from the item count that the trash folder is being included. If I ever have to use this data to restore from, will it be obvious which entries are old/trashed entries vs which ones are current and active entries.

AGAlumB

Thanks for the feedback. Indeed, the export feature is not designed for backup. That's 1Password.com's job anyway (and of course local vaults get backup archives saved to disk periodically). Documents can be exported to disk individually, but we would like to have a way to do that in a batch in the future. Other than that, the export will include whichever items you've selected in the selected vault. So items in the Trash would not be included in that.

hesspaul

Thanks @brenty for the comments. Regarding the Trash it turns out I was using "Export All Items" where I should have been using "Export Selected Items" to avoid including the trashed items.

AGAlumB

Ah, thanks for clarifying! Indeed, depending on what you want, either can be useful. Cheers! :)

hesspaul

Before starting my quarterly unpleasant process of exporting .pif files from each of my now 22 account vaults into a well protect sparsebundle, and stressing about the decision of whether to grab and preserve various document files in those vaults, I wanted to check back on whether there has been any change in providing a more convenient and also more thorough way to export our data or even better a 1Password sanctioned method to archive my data.

I know and believe that you have excellent procedures and redundancy in place but I still feel that it's bad practice for me to trust that one day your system might not be accessible to me either because of company shutdown decisions, national disasters, infrastructure failure beyond your control, or mistakes within your control. I also have my internal worries. For instance if one of my users changed or deleted a bunch of entires in a shared vault 6 months ago that I just discover now, how can I recover it without an archive to go back to?

I'd love: a) a less cumbersome export process than what I currently use or b) a real solution that would allow me to create an archive/snapshot/backup of my account vaults

Current export process: For each vault (I have 22 and expect more in the future), I need to individually select that vault. Then do a select-all to select all items. Then File->Export->All Items, then enter my non trivial master password, then modify the filename to contain that vault's account name and vault name, then save, then OK the dialog that tells me that none of the documents within the vault will be exported (and mourn those uncounted documents that I also wanted to back up), then select the next vault and start again.

Ben

Hi @hesspaul

I know and believe that you have excellent procedures and redundancy in place but I still feel that it's bad practice for me to trust that one day your system might not be accessible to me either because of company shutdown decisions, national disasters, infrastructure failure beyond your control, or mistakes within your control.

I think you may already be aware of this based on previous conversations but in case anyone else reading is not: 1Password works offline. If you or we are offline that would not prevent you from accessing your data, unless you're exclusively using the 1Password web app. Each of the native 1Password apps caches your data. You can test this by disconnecting from the internet and then unlocking 1Password. If we were to disappear off the face of the earth that would still be true. In that case you would certainly want to export your data and move to another solution at that point, but we're a long long way from that. :)

I also have my internal worries. For instance if one of my users changed or deleted a bunch of entires in a shared vault 6 months ago that I just discover now, how can I recover it without an archive to go back to?

We have that covered as well, though admittedly I wasn't able to find off-hand how long this is available for:

View and restore previous versions of items in your team

It may vary based on product tier. I'd recommend reaching out to our business team at business@1password.com via email for further details.

I'd love: a) a less cumbersome export process than what I currently use or b) a real solution that would allow me to create an archive/snapshot/backup of my account vaults

We'd like that as well.

Current export process: For each vault (I have 22 and expect more in the future), I need to individually select that vault. Then do a select-all to select all items. Then File->Export->All Items, then enter my non trivial master password, then modify the filename to contain that vault's account name and vault name, then save, then OK the dialog that tells me that none of the documents within the vault will be exported (and mourn those uncounted documents that I also wanted to back up), then select the next vault and start again.

For now, this and/or backing up the local cache is likely your best bet.

Ben

hesspaul

Thanks @Ben for putting up with my every 4th month rant.

According to @ag_ana in another thread you've improved my process already this time around by setting good default names for exported pif (haven't tested it yet).

The other modes you pointed out are very helpful ... I'll have to dig in a bit more to that. For some reason even though I'm shelter-in-place things are 3x busier than ever right now. :-)

Ben

I know the feeling. :)

Ben