What is the best way to make a local backup of your data?

K49

What is the best way to make a local backup of your data?

Well, I thought this would be easy. File > Export > All Data

But I received a warning that the export file is NOT encrypted!

With my previous password program the export file was encrypted and could not be read outside of that program.

I'm cleaning up and copying a lot of data and I want to have a backup before I make big changes.

Thanks

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

Lars

@K49 - exporting is not the same thing as backing up, as you've discovered. When you choose File > Export, the default is our proprietary .1pif format (though you can also choose .CSV if you wish) -- but both formats are unencrypted because it's assumed you want to use the data outside the 1Password app. If it were encrypted, how would other apps read it? That's why a) it can't really be considered a backup and b) we only recommend it for migrating to another format, and you should always delete all copies of such exports after using them.

If you have standalone setup, then 1Password for Mac makes backups for you automatically; you can find them in Preferences > Backup (just click "Show Files" and you'll see the actual backups in Finder). If you have a 1password.com account, then the 1password.com servers make redundant backups for you. We don't currently have a way to make local backups of 1password.com account data.

K49

Hello Lars,

I don't think I have the "standalone setup". I installed 1Password from the Mac app store and the iOS app store. I use 1Password servers to synchronize across these devices.

I'm doing massive amounts of copying and pasting. It was not possible for me to cleanly copy my data from my old password program. I have to copy and paste all of the elements for all of my many accounts. Several days work.

I wanted to be able to back up my work at a couple different points with the encrypted file. This was super easy to do with my old password program. I know the file is "somewhere" on my Mac because I can access my data without any Internet access.

I read the discussion below, it appears to show where the encrypted file is actually located. By copying that file and keeping track of where it goes aren't I achieving my objective?

https://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/82540/where-does-1password-store-its-data

Lars

@K49 - where you downloaded 1Password from doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether you're using a standalone setup or a 1password.com account. The locations listed in the thread you referenced are backup locations for a standalone setup using version 6 or below. Can you please tell me what version of 1Password for Mac you are using currently, and also open Preferences > Vaults and tell me what you see there: number and names of the vaults you can see. Thanks!

K49

I have 7.2.1

Preferences > Vaults (Show all Vaults) I see my user name, and below that is "Personal".

In "Vault for Saving" Personal is the only choice.

Lars

@K49 - thanks for the clarification. You have a 1password.com account, then, which means that you won't have any data at all in those areas mentioned in that other post (or, if you do, it's legacy standalone data from version 6 or earlier). Right now, there is no way to make local backup copies of your 1password.com data...but that's because 1Password 7 for Mac keeps a cache of the local data already. That's how you're able to use it without an active internet connection. For the record, if you have 1Password 7 for Mac, your data "lives" at the following path:

~/Library/Group Containers/2BUA8C4S2C.com.agilebits/Library/Application Support/1Password/Data/

You could, I suppose, copy that folder out to another location on your hard drive or an external backup disk, but trying to "restore" from an older copy of it would likely cause unpredictable results since the server is the canonical record, not what's on your Mac. I understand the impulse to make multiple redundant backups -- really, I do, and I applaud the general sentiment -- but in this case, that's part of what you're paying for: we use Amazon AWS as our data host, and their disaster recovery plan is arguably the best in the business right now. Two entire datacenters would need to be completely knocked offline before customer accessibility would even start to be affected. And even in such a case - or let's say we as a company go "poof" tomorrow morning as a result of everyone dying from tryptophan poisoning from Canadian Thanksgiving day - you would still have the local cache of your data that's already in 1Password 7 for Mac, and all you would need to do would be: enable standalone vaults by checking the box in Preferences > Advanced that's marked "Allow creation of vaults outside 1password accounts," and then move your data to the standalone vault(s). Hope this helps! :)

K49

Hi Lars,

If anyone is accusing me about being paranoid of losing my passwords. I CONFESS !!

Using 1Password is quite a psychological change for me. I'm coming out of mSecure 3.5.7 (that I liked) because it was simple. That version has now been discontinued. I tried their latest version (5.6 I think) and was not a fan. I did some research and decided to go with the "Big Dogs", (that's you). I'm quite active on Apple Discussions, many there recommended 1Password. (They view you as Mac first, Windows 2nd.)

With mSecure 3.5.7 the encrypted data was "just a file" in my Documents folder. (One time, just for fun I opened the mSecure encrypted file with TextEdit, and it was gibberish.) Using the tennis-shoe network, I copied this file onto a USB stick and copied it from my Mac Pro silver tower, to my MacBook Pro. Synchronization to iPhone was done locally only with Wi-Fi.

I may just backup ~/Library/Group Containers/2BUA8C4S2C.com.agilebits/Library/Application Support/1Password/Data/

In the event of a zombie apocalypse (or hacking by hostile nation-states) it MIGHT prove helpful. I could deny a computer Internet access and restore that file. It should provide a large percentage of original data?

Lars

@K49 - inside that Data folder is ALL your 1Password data. You really, REALLY, REALLY should not try to use it to effect some kind of manual copy/paste sync between devices. If you want to back it up, I guess there's no harm in that. But please don't try to do what you described doing with your mSecure data. Just...don't. It's not necessary and will screw things up.

K49

inside that Data folder is ALL your 1Password data. You really, REALLY, REALLY should not try to use it to effect some kind of manual copy/paste sync between devices. <<

I shall follow your advice.

If you want to back it up, I guess there's no harm in that. <<

I will back it up, only saving it for the Apocalypse.

Lars, Thanks for all of your good advice.

By the way, myself and millions of others wait in eager anticipation for the day when the weak password warning can be disabled. :)

Lars

@K49

By the way, myself and millions of others wait in eager anticipation for the day when the weak password warning can be disabled.

I hear you. Really, I do. And the Watchtower notifications are something we're working to refine in a comprehensive way. They were a new feature in 7.0, and overall they're a big step forward...so we want to make sure we're careful about changing things so that we retain the advances in informing users of potential problems/opportunities while giving users the flexibility to hide or mask the items they need but cannot change (like pages with HTTP instead of HTTPS, etc). Thanks for adding your voice to the throng. :)

K49

Lars,

I have been "messing around" with computers since I bought my first Apple II in 1978. I had to call them once for support, and some guy named Steve Wozniak helped me. (Storage was done on cassette tape!) So I like to think of myself as not a new user.

Anyway, my suggestion would be to have the software "come out of the box" with the warnings just as they are now. Have a setting in Preferences to disable "opinions" about the password quality. I actually find the warning about duplicate passwords to be of greater value. Have a separate ON / OFF setting for "password quality" and "duplicate passwords".

I know you want to do a good job with newer customers unfamiliar with the password security. A simple explanation could be given when someone disables those warnings. You could even require re-entering the master password to turn off the warnings.

The best software, should make beginners and experts happy.

Thanks for reading.

Lars

@K49 - thanks for the suggestions! It's not an easy balance when the user-base gets larger and spreads beyond the already-literate-in-tech. I don't disagree that things should be comprehensible to everyone...but it's remarkable what can get misinterpreted, no matter how something is put or explained. We'll keep working to strike the best balance we can - and thanks for being a part of it.