Recovering unsaved generated passwords, data location, sync, and license questions

mariof

hi everyone, i just discovered this app and i immediately tried it.

1. i changed my email password by clicking the "insert" button of the extension for safari and ta-da, the password was changed but the app didn't memorise it, so i had just lost my email password in a second. fortunately google enabled me to change it again.

2. why don't you actually provide an account? if i remove the app from my mac in just a second i'll lose all my data. am i wrong?

3. why don't you provide an account? if i am on another device or away from home i immediately lose all my data. am i wrong?

4. if i buy a license it will be only for that version? so i should spend 50 € or so every year for my passwords?

please correct me if i am wrong. the idea of this app seems brilliant to me, but the fact that you don't actually give an account where you store the passwords seems a very big problem to me.

Stephen_C

I will try to respond to your questions—but want to make one point first. I never want the information I have stored in 1P held by a third party...never. That's one reason I use wifi to sync my 1Password data between my Mac and my iOS devices. Regardless of my preference, even if you sync via Dropbox or iCloud your data is still protected by your master password and is still thus secure. There's a lot of good information, transparently disclosed, here in the 1P security knowledge base. In essence, you'll find from there that the app is exceptionally secure.

As to your specific points:

1. I'm not entirely clear, from your description, of the exact procedure you followed. However, if you generated a password using 1P have you looked in the Passwords category to see if it's there. That category stores passwords not specifically linked to saved login items.
2. If you delete the app file, without using any app cleaning tool, your 1P data will still be on your Mac. No doubt, like most of us, you make Time Machine backups of your Mac—and, of course, 1P also makes automatic backups (look under 1P > Settings > Backup to see them).
3. You don't "lose" your data simply because you are away from your Mac, of course—although I appreciate you may not have access to it. If you use Dropbox you can use 1Password Anywhere to access your data when you're away from your Mac. Personally, I have my 1P data on my iOS devices, so it's always with me one way or another. (Of course you do need 1P for iOS in order to do that—as well as having an iOS device. :) )
4. 1P is licensed per person per platform (OS X, Windows, iOS, etc.), not per device. You can read more about that on this page. There's no way you have to spend €50 every year. Only major version upgrades are payable—and in practice those don't happen that often (and not usually anywhere near as frequently as once a year—at least based on past experience). In fact the upgrade from 1P4 for oS X to 1P5 for OS X was actually free in any event. What's more, your licence doesn't expire so that, so long as 1P continues to work with your current OS, there's no obligation at all to upgrade if you don't want to.

For more on sync of 1P data have a look at this knowledge base article.

Stephen

mariof

can i at least export my passwords on a text file so that if i upload that somewhere on the internet i will be able to know my passwords when i am away from home or if for some reason i lose/break my mac?

MrC

See Stephen_C's bullet point #3.

You really don't want to store your unencrypted password information in a text file on the web, esp. in light of your post's subject regarding security!

Plato

@mariof

Yes you can --- well, not a text file but something better. Open 1P and go to File/Print. Then print to pdf and store the UNENCRYPTED pdf wherever you wish. Considering the word that I put in all caps, do you kinda get the feeling that I agree with the concerns expressed by @MrC ?

mariof

i get your point but i don't have dropbox nor i want it since i use google drive and i need a recovery place from which i can recuperate my data if something happen to my mac.

Drew_AG

Hi @mariof,

It looks like the others here have already given you some great information & answers to your questions! I hope that was helpful for you. Just to reiterate a few points:

1. To recover a generated password, please see this knowledgebase article: How can I recover an unsaved password?
2. Your data is stored separately from the app. If you delete the app, your data is still on your Mac (assuming you don't use an app cleaning tool to remove associated files). Just re-download 1Password, and it will find your data. 1Password also makes backups of your data and stores them on your Mac. And if you use one of the sync options (such as Dropbox or iCloud sync) your data will still be there, too.
3. If you use Dropbox sync, you can use the 1PasswordAnywhere feature to view your 1Password data from a web browser on another computer or device. Or you can get 1Password on your other computers/devices (we have versions for Mac, iOS, Windows, and Android) and sync your data to them.
4. You don't need to pay for an upgrade every year, we've never had paid upgrades that often. And we don't force you to upgrade, you can continue using your existing license for that version. We've been known to make some upgrades free. If a future version of 1Password for Mac is a paid upgrade, and you have a license from our web store, you're eligible for an upgrade discount.

Also, storing your passwords in a text file on the internet would basically defeat the purpose of securely keeping those passwords in 1Password. There are definitely other options, as I mentioned above!

If you have more questions about any of that, please let us know. Thanks!