have a reached a brick wall in setting up icloud syncing between two macs.

Hello @lopezcalling,

If you're already signed into iCloud as shown in System Preferences > iCloud then you should be able to skip this step on this Mac. Is 1Password saying something to make you believe there is an issue?

It sounds like you have an email account configured to use this Apple ID, but it is not set as the primary iCloud login for your computer. Go to System Preferences > Internet Accounts > and disable or delete the offending account.

When you add the account back, this time through System Preferences > iCloud, you will be prompted to enable email for the account. So you should be back up and running with no disruption to your email.

Hi @lopezcalling ,

Before you proceed, are you using 1Password purchased from the Mac App Store, or from our AgileBits Web Store?

If the AgileBits Webstore, you do not need to do any of this. Simply choose iCloud from the Sync Preferences in 1Password and log in on the web page that appears.

If you are using 1Password purchased from the Mac App Store, then you do need to do the above. This is a bit confusing, but here's what you need to do. Before starting, make sure you know the password for your Apple ID.

1. Open System Preferences from the Apple menu.
2. Click on Internet accounts.
3. Find the iCloud entry with your Apple ID and either turn off all the checkboxes or remove the account by clicking the – button.
4. Then go back to System Preferences, click on iCloud, and sign in with the AppleID.

This time it should let you in and you can proceed to turn on iCloud Sync in 1Password. If you have further questions, feel free to reply.

Regards,
Kevin

Hi @lopezcalling ,

Sorry this is so confusing. iCloud settings are sometimes not as straightforward as we like. But we should be able to get it straightened out. I also have an alternative solution if you wish to try it.

On every Mac, you can have a Primary iCloud account (the one in the iCloud Preferences), and then supplementary iCloud Internet accounts for things like Mail, Calendars, etc. In the Internet Accounts preferences you will see both the Primary iCloud account and supplementary accounts. Note that for App Store purchases, you can sign into any account you like, as that is done from within the App Store app. It doesn't have to be the Primary iCloud account entered in the iCloud Preferences.

So to answer your question, in order to use iCloud for syncing you must go to the iCloud Preferences and attempt to sign in with the same ID as the main computer. If it tells you to delete the apple id from the Internet preferences, then you need to do that, then come back to the iCloud Preferences and sign in again. You do not need to delete other AppleIDs from each Mac - only the Primary AppleID you wish to sync with.

Also, for iCloud sync to work, all Macs have to have the same AppleID signed in as their Primary iCloud account. To do this, OS X is telling you to delete it from the Internet Accounts preferences, and re-sign in from the iCloud Preferences to make it a Primary iCloud account.

Now, if this is going to be an issue (e.g. your different Macs have different Primary iCloud accounts), there is another solution: Dropbox. Dropbox is nice because the sign-in is not tied to anything else (Mail, Find My Mac, etc.) and you can share your vault with other Dropbox users. Dropbox also offers the capability to sync more than one vault, which is useful when sharing vaults to other people. You can get a free Dropbox account here: https://www.dropbox.com. If this is something you'd be willing to consider, let us know and we can help you set up sync.

If you would like to stick with iCloud, you have one of two options:
1. Do the steps above to sign in to the same Primary iCloud account on each Mac.
2. Another alternative that hasn't been mentioned yet is to switch to the Agile Web Store version of 1Password. The Agile Web Store version of 1Password uses a different technology to sync with iCloud that doesn't require you changing any existing iCloud settings on your Macs. Just log in with whatever AppleID you like when setting up sync. Each Mac must still log in to the same Apple ID, and it is a little slower, but it is an option.

If you have different AppleIDs (which it sounds like you do), and more than one person sharing your vault, I would recommend Dropbox. It solves the issue of juggling AppleIDs and works very well, especially if you think you'll eventually want more than one vault (e.g. a personal vault, and a shared vault.)

Please let me know which option you wish to pursue and we'll do our best to help you.

Thank you for your patience in this matter. I realize sync can be confusing. Hopefully we can clear it up and get sync working for you.

Regards,
Kevin

Thanks for the update, @lopezcalling. Please let us know how it turns out. :)

Ben

Hi @lopezcalling,

I don't think you should need to use any additional software on top of Dropbox. What MacDropAny seems to do is to allow you to keep folders that you'd like to see with dropbox outside of Dropbox itself. This could be useful in certain scenarios, but it's not how I'd recommend anyone use dropbox. Just think of Dropbox as a folder that's synced automatically across all Macs.

I would recommend against trying to do anything too fancy/clever with dropbox. Don't treat it as your storage for everything, just things you really want to sync across devices, which in my case ends up being my 1Password data and a few critical documents that I need access to everywhere.

I hope this helps.

Rick

That's a great idea, @lopezcalling.

Cheers.

Rick

Hi @lopezcalling,

If I've understood correctly you're asking what will happen after you connect both Macs to a single Agile Keychain in Dropbox? The following should help explain.

What can you expect to find in your merged vault?

We adopt a conservative approach. We will only merge items from two vaults if they have the same Universally Unique ID (UUID). If they don't we treat the as individual items. They can share the same title, username and password but unless the UUIDs match they're treated as separate items. In these instances you will see duplicates requiring you to manually remove one. When you do this I would recommend ensuring you don't have any unique information held only in one copy. If an item in each vault has the same UUID we will merge the two. Where the data is the same in both it's easy, there is nothing to do. When there is different data in each we will keep one set of the data where it normally resides and place the other set in a custom section titled Conflicts. This way we don't risk throwing anything important away and instead leave it to the user to ensure the good data is kept and the now obsolete data is removed.

So as you can see, there may be some cleanup required afterwards or it might all go pretty smoothly. I would expect a small amount of tidying up will be required but that should be about it. If you have any questions before you start please do ask :smile:

If you're worried at all it might be worth creating backups of the existing vaults, here is how to do so.

• 1Password for Mac. Use the menu option File > Backup on each copy of 1Password for Mac.

So if the 200 items on the 2nd computer came from the first Mac at a prior point in history then changes will be merged although as you can see there may be conflicts to manually resolve but it's likely both Macs will end up with 400 at the end. If some unknown number of those 200 on the 2nd computer are items unique to this computer then you could end up with more than 400, it all depends on the UUIDs. Does that help explain at all?

Regarding Dropbox you have two options.

1. Use the same Dropbox account on both Macs. They will both have access to every file or folder that the other stores inside this single Dropbox account.
2. You create a second Dropbox account just for the client and you share the 1Password folder containing the OPVault that you want to sync to from both Macs.

There is no right or wrong here, it's what works best for the individual. If you want to share a single folder with somebody but not give access to your entire Dropbox folder you can share a single folder with them (more information is available at How do I share a file or folder with others?). If you're happy to use a single Dropbox account between the two then that's the route to choose. Both routes though will require the Dropbox client installed on both Macs and you will have to be logged into a Dropbox account that has access to the files.

I hope this helps but if it doesn't please do let us know.

Hi @lopezcalling,

You can certainly do that. I suggest making a backup in 1Password's Backup preferences on each Mac just in case.

Then be sure to quit 1Password on each Mac by holding down the control key while selecting Quit 1Password and 1Password mini from the 1Password menu.

After that, copy the container Library/Containers/2BUA8C4S2C.com.agilebits.onepassword-osx-helper to the same location on the client Mac.

Once you've got 1Password up and running again on the server and client computers, you can turn on Dropbox Sync in the Sync preferences. Make sure they both point to the same file in Dropbox. The sync preferences will show you the path when it is set up.

If you need further assistance, feel free to reply.

Cheers,
Kevin