This is a complicated question, but I’d like to have a shared 1Password account database across both my Mac systems and my iPhone. I tried using iCloud for sync but that failed, so I’d like to use Dropbox instead. Can you walk me through the process?
By coincidence I’ve been experimenting with various sync options on 1Password, my favorite password storage and management program for the Mac platform, and had the same problems with iCloud sync too. Turns out that’s because you can’t use iCloud sync unless you’re running Yosemite (Mac OS X 10.10) and iOS 8 and the very latest versions of the app for both platforms too. And even then, well, I have all of that and I still can’t get iCloud sync to work.
Fortunately 1Password works pretty darn easily with Dropbox so it’s an easy alternative solution and since it stores the data encrypted, it’s just as safe as iCloud (at least, I hope so!).
To start, go into the 1Password program on your Mac system and go to “Sync” under Preferences to choose Dropbox:
That all looks good, and the most important thing is that it has successfully sync’d and created the data files.
Time to switch to the iPhone or iPad. Launch 1Password for iOS and sicne it’s the first time you’ve launched it, you’ll see something like this:
Tap on “Sync existing vault” and you’ll have some options:
Tap on “Sync with Dropbox” to proceed.
At this point you’ll want to already have Dropbox installed on your iOS device and logged in. Assuming that’s the case, you’ll just go straight to a request for access:
If you don’t get here, just flip over to Dropbox and log in, then try 1Password again.
Once you get this prompt tap on “Allow” to proceed.
By default it uses the same naming scheme as the 1Password on the Mac system, so it should be prompting for you to choose the correct one.
Good? Good. Tap on it.
All you care about here is the “Syncing…” prompt.
Time passes.
Then finally, you have all your 1Password information easily available on your mobile device too:
That’s all there is to it. Now they’ll stay in sync. Darn handy!
Great article on 1passord, but I think you should take a look at LastPass. Everything syncs to the cloud and they use PFS. Meaning the encryption keys are renegotiated every 10-20mins, so if the service got hacked it would simply not matter as the data would be highly encrypted and the keys would consistently change. Too add, even if the cypto keys were ever compromised, it would still not unlock the data as the keys change and rehash multiple times in the hour.
They also operate a zero knowledge system. So they cannot read the data or pass it to the government even if they tried or wanted to. Physically impossible. You hold your own encryption keys, they cannot access them.