Can I have a password saved in 2 vaults at the same time
Hi, I am just leaning 1password. I have a shared vault and a personal vault. If I save or enter a password, do I have to enter it for each vault or can I have it saved in both vaults at the same time? My partner and I want all of both of our passwords in the shared vault and the ones we personally use the most in our individual vaults. Also if I have a password saved in both vaults and I change the password in one of the vaults, will it change the password for the same item in the other vault that I have?
1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided
Comments
-
I'm using a Mac & iPhones, so I can't say that this is exactly what happens on the Windows version. I'm using an physical world analogy which might better explain how this all works.
Think of a login/password (the 'password') combination as a physical key to your house: you can use it to open your house and keep it in your pocket (Personal vault). You can get it duplicated and keep one in your pocket (Personal vault) and keep a copy under the flowerpot† (Shared vault) so that your partner (or other authorised people) can open the door to your house when they want.
A single key can't both be in your pocket and also be in under the flowerpot, it is in either place but not both at the same time. You can make a copy of a key and put one in each place but they are separate keys and independent of each other.
• If you change the lock to your front door, you need to get all the keys re-cut so that they can all continue to open your front door. (Shared vault passwords are kept automatically in sync, passwords stored in Personal vaults are not and have to be updated manually.)
• If you just get the key in your pocket re-cut to match the new front door lock, the one under the flowerpot won't work unless you get it re-cut too. (Changes to the Personal vault password won't update the password stored in the Shared vault)
• If you get the front door lock changed and the key under the flowerpot re-cut to fit, the key in your pocket won't open the new lock until you get it re-cut to fit the new lock. An important thing to note is that you still have access to your shared key under the flowerpot and so you should still be able to unlock your front door. (Changes to the Shared vault password by you won't update your password stored in your Personal vault.)
• If your partner gets the front door lock changed and the key under the flowerpot re-cut to fit, the key in your pocket won't open the new lock until you get it re-cut to fit the new lock. An important thing to note is that you still have access to your shared key under the flowerpot and so you should still have the ability to unlock your front door, and you can also use that copy of the key to get another key cut that fits the new lock. (Changes to the Shared vault password by someone allowed to share that vault won't update the password stored in your Personal vault, but you can make a copy of the Shared vault password to make a new password that you can store in your Personal vault.)
• If you take out the key from under the flowerpot and put it in your pocket then you might now have two identical keys in your pocket, but this means your partner is unable to open the door because the key under the flowerpot is gone. (Moving a password from the Shared vault to your Personal vault will make it unavailable to your partner.)
• If you both just share the single key under the flowerpot, you can make a copy of the flowerpot key and store it in your pocket in case your partner takes the key from under the flowerpot and doesn't put it back. (Duplicating a password from the Shared vault and moving it to your Personal vault will make this password available regardless of what happens to the Shared password.)
• If you both just share the single key under the flowerpot, your partner can make a copy of the flowerpot key and store it on their person in case your take the key from under the flowerpot and you don't put it back. (Duplicating a password from the Shared vault and moving it to a Personal vault will make this password available to the owner of the Personal vault regardless of what happens to the Shared password.)
• If you have multiple copies of keys for the same lock, you might want to label them differently if one is meant for being stored under the flowerpot. (Inside the 1Password7 app it's easy to see which password is in which vault, as long as you aren't showing 'All Vaults'. If you are using the web browser and have selected 'All vaults' you might see multiple passwords. Multiple passwords are completely fine, unless the password for a site hasn't been updated everywhere and then things start getting messy.)Exiting analogy here.
• If you absolutely trust your partner not to delete, edit, or move a Shared password so you don't have access to it, then the easiest way is just have one entry in the Shared vault that you share with your partner. If your password changes, it is easier to update this single shared password instead of updating this and then having to manually propagate changes to the same password entry in your Personal vault.
• If you are worried that your partner might accidentally change the shared password, then you might want to make a copy and put it in your Personal vault and then rename it so you can see that it isn't the Shared password. So a Shared 'Adobe ID' might be duplicated, the copy put in your Personal vault and renamed 'Adobe ID (Pers.)' so it's easier to ensure you are updating the Shared version and not the Personal version when you need to do so.
• I don't think 1Password allows a password to be locked so that only particular authorised people can delete, edit or move a password: once people have access to a shared password it is vulnerable to damage. This might make you decide to create your own copies you keep in your Personal vault in case of emergency. The down side to this is that any changes to a copy in the Shared vault won't automatically update the copy stored in the Personal vault and might mean more work to keep everything synchronised.Footnotes:
†: A very, very secure flowerpot, so that only people with your permission can get access to anything stored underneath.0 -
@Bill_Lee: Thanks for the comments! Certainly not a perfect analogy, but perhaps as close as we can get between the physical and digital worlds. :)
@chancey22: Indeed, I think Bill gave some great metaphors that help, but I did want to back up to answer the fundamental question since you posed it so succinctly:
Can I have a password saved in 2 vaults at the same time
The answer is no. Each vault is encrypted separately. That way when you share one vault with someone, you're not giving them the "keys" to all of your other stuff too, only that particular vault. So stuff in one vault is completely separate from another.
Bill gave some great suggestions too, but I wanted to mention that you also have the option of creating another vault to share with some, all, or none of your family members, and it is also possible to set it as read-only. Let me know if that helps!
0 -
Thanks for the kind words brenty. My biggest regret in my above comment is getting the 'Personal' and 'Private' terms mixed up and so every time I used the term 'Personal' I should have used the term 'Private' since on a Family subscription there is no 'Personal' vaults, only 'Private' vaults, by default.
I was wondering how to make Shared information unchangeable to people you are sharing it with, and thought it may not be possible, but brenty said it was so I looked further.
Well, it appears not to be possible inside the 1Password7 app, but it is possible if you log on to the 1Password website under your Family login and you can manage the access to vault contents this way. You can give different people different access to a vault, but everything in that vault has the same permissions so you might need to have multiple shared vaults if you want to having varying permissions for some of the entries you want to share to various people. The three different types of access you can give someone else on the contents of a shared vault are: 'Allow Viewing', 'Allow Editing', and 'Allow Managing'. It looks like giving someone access to a particular vault gives them 'Allow Viewing' and 'Allow Editing' permissions by default, and you can just turn off the 'Allow Editing' to give that person Read-Only access to everything stored in this vault.
I'll thus change my conclusions above to the following recommendations:
• If you absolutely trust your partner not to delete, edit, or move a Shared password so you don't have access to it, then the easiest way is just have one entry in the Shared vault that you share with your partner. If your password changes, it is easier to update this single shared password instead of updating this and then having to manually propagate changes to the same password entry in your Private vault. You will still have access to previous passwords on the 1Password website, so if the password was changed or deleted mistakenly you should be able to retrieve it this way.
• If you are worried that your partner might accidentally change the shared password when they shouldn't, then you might want to turn off 'Allow Editing' on the Family 1Password web site so that they can use the password but not change it.
• If you both need to share a password and both of you need to be able to change it but you are worried that your partner might mistakenly change or delete your shared password when it should not be changed or deleted, then you keep the password in a shared vault but make a copy of this shared password and put it in your Private vault and then rename it so you can see that it isn't the Shared password. So a Shared 'Adobe ID' might be duplicated, the copy put in your Private vault and renamed 'Adobe ID (Pers.)' so it's easier to ensure you are updating the Shared version and not the Personal version when you need to do so. You will still have access to previous passwords on the 1Password website, so if the password was changed or trashed mistakenly you should be able to retrieve it this way and may not need extra copies.0 -
Thanks for the kind words brenty. My biggest regret in my above comment is getting the 'Personal' and 'Private' terms mixed up and so every time I used the term 'Personal' I should have used the term 'Private' since on a Family subscription there is no 'Personal' vaults, only 'Private' vaults, by default.
@Bill_Lee: Any time! And if that's your biggest regret, you're doing great! In fact, both "Personal" and "Private" vaults are technically the same thing. They were all called "Personal" for a while, but we later changed it to "Private" for family and business accounts to better reflect their function. We would have changed it for individual accounts too...but "Private" is pretty much meaningless there since there's no sharing. So it's no you; it's us. :)
Anyway, I think it you gave a good overview of the different options. But we're here if you have any other questions. Cheers! :)
0
