Feature Request: Multiple 1Password Keychains

I'd like the ability to have (separate) a "Personal" and "Business" keychain. The thought or reason behind this is (for example) I could sync my "Personal" keychain with my wife's computer for our credit cards, bank accounts, etc. without giving her my work passwords (for which I could be terminated). I could also sync my "Business" keychain between multiple computers at work without scattering my credit card information all over the place.

I usually work from home, so on my "main" daily use computer I have need of both sets of data.
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Comments

  • Nik
    Nik
    1Password Alumni
    edited December 1969
    1Password looks for a file called 1Password.keychain. You can have different keychains, but you'd need to quit 1Password and manually rename them, then restart 1Password so that it reads the right one. There's no way to support multiple libraries with the application's current architecture; however, we are developing an alternative to the keychain and we may be able to provide a solution to this in the future.

    Thanks for your feedback!

    --
    Gita Lal
    1Password Help Desk
    http://1password.com
    http://support.agilewebsolutions.com
    http://twitter.com/1Password
  • Colin_P
    edited December 1969
    I really hope a solution to having multiple keychains is implemented soon! I really need that functionality. I'm in a very similar situation as SkydiveMike.

    Hope to see multiple keychain support soon!
  • Carl
    Carl
    Community Member
    edited December 1969
    Switching to the new Agile Keychain format is going to be what facilitates this in the future. So if you are still using the OS X keychain format for your data, I recommend that you make the switch. :)
  • atani
    edited December 1969
    I'm also looking for a solution to this, the scenario being that in our office we have multiple security levels that require separate keychains - one per security level, so someone with the highest level would need to have the keychain for each level readily available. Currently this is done easily (for reading) but clumsily (for editing) in the Keychain Access.app by just having each keychain in the keychains list.

    The scenario of personal and business keychains described above is another one that I'm faced with - keychain management is getting out of control! :-o

    With the new Agile Keychain format (great work btw, this is going to really open up some possibilities), as I understand it, the 1Password keychain file/bundle is now multi-user safe for reads/writes. Is there a way currently or is there a plan to support having multiple keychains open simultaneously?
  • Carl
    Carl
    Community Member
    edited December 1969
    atani wrote:

    With the new Agile Keychain format (great work btw, this is going to really open up some possibilities), as I understand it, the 1Password keychain file/bundle is now multi-user safe for reads/writes. Is there a way currently or is there a plan to support having multiple keychains open simultaneously?


    TBD. I spoke with Roustem about this the other day and I don't believe we have any inherent multi-user record locking in place at the present, the framework should allow for it. However, since it is 1 entry per file now the risk is minimized to 1 entry vs. many.

    We'll be exploring more in this area.
  • davale
    edited December 1969
    I am also looking for the functionality SkydiveMike discribed. Any idea when this will be available?
  • Nik
    Nik
    1Password Alumni
    edited December 1969
    Welcome to the forums, davale. Sorry, I don't have a timeline for you. Right now we are at the exploratory stage, considering it for future implementation.

    --
    Gita Lal
    1Password Help Desk
    http://1password.com
    http://support.agilewebsolutions.com
    http://twitter.com/1Password
  • tinderbox
    edited December 1969
    I'd like to post in support of this feature.

    I'd like to use it for the same reason the original poster mentioned. The multiuser safe read/write locks don't concern me as I'd keep her and my keychains in sync using the Dropbox shared folders.

    Seems like a match made in heaven. All I need is the ability to have multiple Agile keychains.
  • Smudge
    Smudge
    Community Member
    edited December 1969
    With a slight change to the Export Selected feature, this could work very easily.

    Right now with Export Selected, you have to select individual entries. If it could also work by just selecting a folder and it would include all the entries in that folder then you could export it to a 1Password Interchange file then pass that to your wife. It would only include the passwords for your home use and not your work.
  • Jon.pdx
    Jon.pdx
    Community Member
    edited December 1969
    Smudge wrote:
    With a slight change to the Export Selected feature, this could work very easily.

    Right now with Export Selected, you have to select individual entries. If it could also work by just selecting a folder and it would include all the entries in that folder then you could export it to a 1Password Interchange file then pass that to your wife. It would only include the passwords for your home use and not your work.


    I had a similar idea, but I see from the export the interchange format is not encrypted. it would be nice to have the facilities to export a sub-keychain and then merge that back in.

    I guess this is what happens, when people like your application!

    -jon.pdx
  • jxpx777
    jxpx777
    1Password Alumni
    edited December 1969
    Smudge wrote:
    With a slight change to the Export Selected feature, this could work very easily.

    Right now with Export Selected, you have to select individual entries. If it could also work by just selecting a folder and it would include all the entries in that folder then you could export it to a 1Password Interchange file then pass that to your wife. It would only include the passwords for your home use and not your work.


    Without a modification, you can select the folder and then select all and use the current Export Selected.
  • jpgoldberg
    jpgoldberg
    1Password Alumni
    edited December 1969
    Me, too. I also would like the have a separate keychain that I can share with my wife.
  • jweber
    jweber
    Community Member
    edited December 1969
    I'm late to this thread (and 1Password), but I'm wondering:

    It looks like it's currently possible to have multiple Agile keychains, even though only one can be open at a time. When I double-click one in the Finder, 1Password prompts me to switch to it. Or I can switch keychains in 1Password's Preferences.

    Is this right? Are there any known problems with having multiple keychains, and switching among them? For example, what if you switch keychains and try to sync with the iPhone?
  • jxpx777
    jxpx777
    1Password Alumni
    edited December 1969
    jweber wrote:
    I'm late to this thread (and 1Password), but I'm wondering:

    It looks like it's currently possible to have multiple Agile keychains, even though only one can be open at a time. When I double-click one in the Finder, 1Password prompts me to switch to it. Or I can switch keychains in 1Password's Preferences.


    This is correct. You could theoretically maintain multiple Agile Keychain files.

    Is this right? Are there any known problems with having multiple keychains, and switching among them? For example, what if you switch keychains and try to sync with the iPhone?


    If you sync an iPhone with one keychain and then switch to another and perform a sync, the items contained in the first keychain that are now on the iPhone but are not in the second keychain will be pushed to the second keychain. So, you would want to avoid this. Also, 1Password keeps a hidden file in your home directory as a stake in the ground for synching and it doesn't account for multiple keychains AFAIK.

    Short story: Synching could go really wonky if you switch among keychain files. It's untested and unsupported.
  • tinderbox
    edited December 1969
    I'm bumping this forum topic, hoping to see some information/movement towards this feature. This would really be a deal-seller for me for purchasing more licenses beyond mine.
  • jxpx777
    jxpx777
    1Password Alumni
    edited December 1969
    tinderbox wrote:
    I'm bumping this forum topic, hoping to see some information/movement towards this feature. This would really be a deal-seller for me for purchasing more licenses beyond mine.


    We realize this is an attractive feature for many users, and we have some ideas in this regard. Not sure when they will be implemented, but stay tuned. :)
  • chirayuk
    edited December 1969
    I'd like to use multiple keychains for home vs. syncing and am willing to close and open each one separately. However, I read the warning that this might screw up syncing somehow. How? I'll sync the iPhone with exactly one keychain. But I do want to switch (i.e. open and close) keychains. What might break with doing this? How can I avoid it?
  • roustem
    edited December 1969
    chirayuk wrote:
    I'd like to use multiple keychains for home vs. syncing and am willing to close and open each one separately. However, I read the warning that this might screw up syncing somehow. How? I'll sync the iPhone with exactly one keychain. But I do want to switch (i.e. open and close) keychains. What might break with doing this? How can I avoid it?


    Please wait for 1Password touch 2.0. I will be submitting it to App Store very soon.

    You can then use different .agilekeychain files and switch between them.
  • alexch
    edited December 1969
    Any progress on this feature?

    I've been using 1P personally for years and love it, and I want to use it in my company. But we need each user to have two keychains: one for shared company passwords, and one for personal passwords.

    Ideally, the two keychains would be open simultaneously and functionally merged (i.e. when you're on a site, you get the option to choose logins from either file, just like if you have multiple logins now) but it would be OK if there were a quick way to switch from one to the other.
  • Tekl
    Tekl
    Community Member
    edited December 1969
    I also need support for two groups (private and company) of passwords. It mustn't be in two files, but they must be synchronized separately and must have separate passwords.

    This feature could also be nice for families. One password for every person and one global family password. You could allow separate passwords for folders.
  • MartyS
    MartyS
    Community Member
    edited December 1969
    I'm sorry, but there hasn't been any further development in this area... either for the 1Password mobile apps or for 1Password Mac. We appreciate hearing your interest and yet this would be quite an endeavor... especially a "blended" use of more than one set of available data from multiple syncs.
  • I too would like the ability to have multiple files in action at the same time. Our company needs to share passwords for hundreds of sites and we try to avoid having the same password on multiple sites. But sharing/storing these passwords is a huge pain in the neck. If we could have a separate business file which synced through dropbox that would be ideal.

    I really look forward to seeing this functionality supported in the future.
  • scott.houchin
    scott.houchin
    Community Member
    I'm also very interested in this, particularly now that I'm a heavy user of different autogenerated passwords for each site. I'd like to be able to have my wife's laptop (which sits in our kitchen and which I use frequently) have access to my complete keychain (or maybe only a portion of it if I separate work and home stuff) through Dropbox onto her laptop from her user account.

  • I'm also very interested in this, particularly now that I'm a heavy user of different autogenerated passwords for each site. I'd like to be able to have my wife's laptop (which sits in our kitchen and which I use frequently) have access to my complete keychain (or maybe only a portion of it if I separate work and home stuff) through Dropbox onto her laptop from her user account.


    Thank you for bumping this thread Scott as this feature is something I really want as well :)

    We have talked internally about enabling password sharing several times now and we're getting closer to a solution. With that said, there are a lot of important details left to hammer out so I'm not making any promises on when this will see the light of day.
  • Harry Warrior
    Harry Warrior
    Community Member
    if you are implementing this, please support some easy way to identify which keychain is currently open. Either some theme/color (might be overkill) or some bold tag/name somewhere (even a manual way to create a different icon would do)

  • if you are implementing this, please support some easy way to identify which keychain is currently open. Either some theme/color (might be overkill) or some bold tag/name somewhere (even a manual way to create a different icon would do)


    My personal feeling is we should focus on the Sharing aspect instead of separate data files, but we have not gotten far enough to decide which is the winning approach. Time will tell.
  • I'd like to vote (with my wallet) for something which will let me:

    • Use 1Password to manage my personal and business passwords
    • Share my business passwords with my business partner(s) allowing each of us to access, add and edit passwords
    • Keep my business partners from accessing my personal passwords
    • Continue to sync changes to my passwords between all my iDevices, and back them up remotely, using Dropbox or something which provides the similar functionality (i.e. effectively magic :) )


    Glad to hear you want this feature too @dteare, that gives me hope that it might happen soon. Fingers crossed! :D
  • khad
    khad
    1Password Alumni
    Welcome to the forums, Simon! Thanks for reviving this old thread. We are very excited at the prospect of 1Password doing exactly what you describe, but I don't have a time frame I can share right now for when or if that will happen. We don't like to promise new features since anything can happen between now and the release, but I can assure you this has not fallen between the cracks. :-)

    If we can be of further assistance, please let us know.

    We are always here to help!
  • khad wrote:

    Welcome to the forums, Simon! Thanks for reviving this old thread. We are very excited at the prospect of 1Password doing exactly what you describe, but I don't have a time frame I can share right now for when or if that will happen. We don't like to promise new features since anything can happen between now and the release, but I can assure you this has not fallen between the cracks. :-)


    Thanks for the reply, Khad. I shall dial back the excitement to a gentle simmer.

    S
  • khad
    khad
    1Password Alumni
    Slow cooking tastes better anyway. The features are more polished — er, more juicy. Or something. :-D
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