A multiple user solution for 1Password6 for Family users
After reading various posts in your forums I see that many family users have the same scenario as I. They use 1Password on Windows under one Windows user account but with more than one 1Password user.
With the old version that wasn't a problem because if I wanted to use 1Password under Windows I selected my vault either in the browser or in the app and I was ready to go. If my wife wanted to use 1Password she only needed to change to their vault.
With the current Family version that isn't possible anymore. Unfortunately, that common family use case isn't implemented. I would either have to use multiple Windows users (what would be very inconvenient) or I would have to use a common 1Password Family account and both of us would have access to all passwords. That would be also very inconvenient and might not be a viable use case for many family users.
Therefore I hope you will figure out a solution that would allow different 1Password Family users one after another to use the 1Password6 app under the same Windows user profile. Using only the web interface for other family users can't be a long time solution.
To be frank without that feature I can't migrate to Family fully. Currently I have a yearly plan but still run on 1Password4. Please provide a solution for that common use case.
1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided
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@dahanbn: Indeed, the best thing to do would be to use separate user accounts. I know that may not sound appealing, but especially since security is at stake, this is more important than ever. Multiple people using the same user account multiplies the risk of one person clicking on a malicious link in an email, or completely without fault, falling prey to a browser website — and this in turn would impact everyone using that same user account. An alternative, as you mentioned, would be to use the web interface. But that still brings with it many of the same risks.
More to the point, 1Password simply wasn't designed to be a multi-user application. You can see this reflected from the beginning. Originally, it didn't even support multiple vaults. Oddly enough, the number one request we had from 1Password for Windows users for years was that it support multiple vaults simultaneously, though some 1Password for Mac users have requested that it unlock each vault separately too. It's impossible to make everyone happy, so we try to strike a balance that is a good fit for most users.
But while supporting multiple users isn't something 1Password is meant to, it is something that some folks have requested, so we'll continue to consider it for future versions. But ultimately even if we decide to go that route, it's likely to be a ways off since we'd really need to support that feature across all platforms, and it would require a lot of work on the design and to ensure that it's implemented securely.
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@dahanbn: I agree that it would be useful. However, I don't want to get your hopes up that something like this can happen in the near term. It hasn't been added to any other platforms, and if we implement something major like "profiles" in 1Password, it really needs to be thought out carefully, if for no other reason than for consistency. Imagine if only 1Password for Windows had this. Never mind that folks on other platforms would feel left out, the real problem would be that you and your loved ones could use 1Password profiles this way only on a specific device, and then when you use it on others it would completely break your workflow. Considering the cross-platform-ness of 1Password.com, I think that we need to continue to think of features for it as cross-platform first, and then implementation details alone platform-specific. And, perhaps most importantly today, we have a lot of other work to do on the new 1Password 6 Windows desktop app in the mean time (as you well know), and that really needs to take precedence. I'm glad you brought this up now though. It's good to check in, and it's something that's very much on our minds. :)
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I don't want to hijack one of the many various topics out there that mentions the same problem either on the Mac or on Windows. I don't know if you count them internally do see if such a change really make sense. But in the last weeks I read a lot of such requests and therefore I would love to know if you internally count those requests from here. At least there seems to be a lot of users that also have that uncommon use case.
@dahanbn: Absolutely we track these! And while there are just a few here and there, it is pretty steady and definitely helps to keep this feature request in our thoughts. I personally like reading about all of the different situations and workarounds, because there's a rather wide variety, and a lot of things I never would have guessed. It really helps to make that mental Venn diagram to try to come up with something that would cover these.
Not really. As a Windows user I know how does it feel to be left out. And furthermore is it more likely that a desktop device like a Mac or a Windows pc is shared by more than one user. And for home use it is often only one operating system user beside root/administrator for convenience sake.
Haha fair enough. And that's an excellent point about computers, though it does seem a bit counterintuitive in a sense, because desktop OSes do support multiple users while mobile OSes do not.
On iPhones and mobile phones in general it is totally different. Another problem to overcome would be to find a solution for tablets.
I know a lot of people share iPads in their families, so I was really hoping that Apple would add profiles there...but so far it's just for educational deployments I guess. It seems like more people would want to use profiles in 1Password on computers, but I think because mobile devices don't have a way to switch users at all, it may be important that 1Password supports this there too. Thanks so much for your feedback on this! :)
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Hi, @dahanbn.
If you're using a recent version of Windows, it's worth giving multiple accounts a try. Everything just works better - personalized task bars, browser cookies / sessions, personal OneDrive/DropBox/etc. Personally, I don't blame AgileBits for not building their own notion of accounts/identities when both Mac and Windows do a fine job of it.
I know this is just an opinion but I do believe that this is a straightforward, simple solution to what you're asking for and I think it's worth giving it a shot at least.
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@zendnez: Thanks for chiming in! While certainly user accounts are straightforward and have the benefit of being an available option, I think there's good case to be made for both. Certainly they don't cover all use cases, but at the same time I'm not sure that profiles in 1Password itself would either. It's a complex issue, so hopefully with everyone's feedback we'll be able to hone in on a happy medium. :) :+1:
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Hi @dahanbn,
That's certainly an option, use a different password manager that matches your need right now. We'd rather you be secure, even if it means using something else.
For now, we do want to accommodate this type of use case in the future, we have looked at many ways to do this and none of them fits for us. We'll keep looking but for now, this is not going to happen for a while.
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@dahanbn I understand your points. I really do.
In my household of two adults and two teenagers, there's not really an option of sharing single accounts within the various Macs & PCs people use. Privacy, personalization, and cloud-connected software (e.g., OneDrive/DropBox, Wunderlist, Email, Address Books, etc.) just make that impossible.
I have shared a computer with other people in the past and the solutions to the issues you raise exist, but are certainly more complicated than sharing a single account. For example, it's easy to create a folder called Music at the root of your drive and then just use that folder from within multiple accounts. Personally, though, I just have network attached storage for all music, personal documents, etc. and everyone just connects to that. My setup might be more complex than yours due to the number of people and devices involved.
Anyhow...I was just sharing some personal thoughts with my initial recommendation. Good luck with your situation and I hope you find a strategy that works for you.
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Yep, that's I do for my own family, I have a Synology NAS that's storing all of the data that they can access, sync or stream. For an example, all of our media content is on the NAS only, we stream it to our devices without taking up any space on the local devices and it does have iTunes support.
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