Documents not stored offline with 1Password Account

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gordon9293
gordon9293
Community Member
edited November 2016 in Families

I have recently converted my Dropbox-synced vaults to a 1Password for Families account, since that method seems to be getting the development priority right now. However, today I ran into a rather awkward situation when I needed to pull up some important documents in an area with no internet access. It would appear that although my other information is stored locally, documents/attachments are not, as it tried to download it and just complained that I was offline. I ended up having to go find the archived copy of my old database from before I converted to a 1Password account, import that back into the app, and retrieve my documents that way. Needless to say, this was not an ideal solution.

Bottom line, I store all kinds of important secure documents in 1Password, and offline access is crucial. Is there a way to always store offline copies of all documents, or do I need to go back to using Dropbox for syncing?


1Password Version: 6.3.5
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: 1Password Account

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  • Hey @gordon9293! Thanks for asking about this. With documents, while they aren't stored offline automatically, you can download them to make them available offline for the future. :) In 1Password for Mac, save documents by clicking the item, then clicking the file download icon. Do this for each document, and once they have been downloaded, you can access them anytime in the future no matter where you are. You can do the same in 1Password for iOS. Hope that helps.

  • gordon9293
    gordon9293
    Community Member
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    Hmm, so I have hundreds of documents, so you're saying navigate to them one by one and click Download? This isn't really practical. Is there a way to do them all at once?

  • @gordon9293 At the moment, that's the best option. I'll let the team know you're looking for a download all option. We've had some other requests for it as well, and I imagine it would be very useful. There are a few challenges to building it, though, like creating a downloads interface since you'd need to check the progress of your download. Thanks for the feedback.

    ref: OPI-3725

  • tommyent
    tommyent
    Community Member
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    @gordon9293 You might be able to. I can but I am using the Mac beta 6.5.2 so your results may vary.
    Select all documents (click on one document then control + a or click the first then shift click the last one in the list)
    Right click => Download local copy

    Looking at the changelog you would need to be running 6.5.1 or higher which was released the day you posted this question :) If you update regularly you should be on 6.5.2

  • @tommyent Thanks so much for mentioning this! :) We're pretty excited to have it out there.

  • gordon9293
    gordon9293
    Community Member
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    @tommyent @Jacob Perfect!! No progress bar, but I can totally live with that for now. I was actually going to cancel my Families subscription today because this was a blocking issue for me, but no longer.

    Suggestion: Right now it looks like if I add new documents, I'll have to remember to save them offline as well. It would be great if you could just have a checkbox in Preferences to "always download documents" so I wouldn't have to worry about explicitly doing so.

  • tommyent
    tommyent
    Community Member
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    @gordon9293 The good news if you forget a few as time passes you can go back and select all and choose download and it will download the missing ones instead of clicking through to try and see what you forgot

  • Indeed! There's certainly stuff we can make better. :)

  • skippingrock
    skippingrock
    Community Member
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    @Jacob,
    I was just coming to mention that I really need the ability on the Mac and iOS to force download all documents.
    Also as a corollary, the ability to delete a local copy of a document (or all documents).

    As @gordon9293 mentioned, I often use items stored within 1Password for when I'm travelling. Things like electronic copies of my children's Child Find booklets, passports, tickets and many other things. I can never predict when I'd need a particular document nor which, nor can I predict the reliability or accessibility of a clean Internet connection. When traveling I like to stay offline as much as possible.

    Like others I have many documents and don't want to be opening them all to download them. But also when there are times when storage on my iOS devices becomes an issue, I'd like to be able to offload some stuff on my device to be able to have the storage to do a device iOS update. Therein the ability to delete all local storage documents becomes needed.

    Cheers, @skippingrock

  • Hi @skippingrock - I can understand the need for this especially if traveling. We appreciate you taking the time to reach out to us and let us know this is an important feature you would like to see implemented within 1Password. I will make sure to mention this to the team and add your +1 vote :-) Sorry for not having a better answer or timeline to share with you at the moment. Thank you again for sharing your use case with us which definitely gives us a little more perspective. Enjoy the rest of your day :+1:

  • skippingrock
    skippingrock
    Community Member
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    Thanks! When travelling I like to go with the assumption that I won't have Internet access and one reason why I still prefer to use my standalone Dropbox method for all of these types of things.

    Currently I purposely have copying instead of moving of all of my crucial items to the 1P Family account, keeping them in my Dropbox synced vaults. I'd prefer to be able to have the confidence of needing only one copy, but can't take that risk that the document won't be there.

    Cheers, @skippingrock.

  • Hi @skippingrock - I completely understand. I don't store all my documents within my 1Password Families account. It's not meant to replace Dropbox by any means as far as storing documents. I only store sensitive documents within my Families account - 1) so my wife has access to this data 2) I want to make sure it's secure and fully encrypted such as a tax return. Again, sorry for not having a better answer at the moment but I will make sure to share your feedback with the team. Have a great day!

  • deviantintegral
    deviantintegral
    Community Member
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    How is this handled for the mobile apps? With Dropbox, I often kept important docs (health insurance, passport copies) and knew they were always available offline.

  • Hi @deviantintegral - Great question! Documents have to be downloaded and are not accessible in offline mode. You can download them ahead of time but documents are not automatically downloaded or cached to your devices. I hope this helped. Have a great day!

  • deviantintegral
    deviantintegral
    Community Member
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    Ok, thanks for the info. Hope to see this fixed in the future.

  • We really do want to provide a "automatically download documents" feature so that devices can automatically cache the encrypted documents such that they're available even when offline. The old sync formats forced this, and is part of the reason that the old sync formats had such small attachment size limits (5MB per attachment). We want to open up those limits because 1Password.com is able to handle much larger files due to this on-demand download feature.

    It's on our radar, we want it (the bulk download feature in 1Password for Mac was the first babystep). I trust that we'll get to it eventually.

    Rick

  • skippingrock
    skippingrock
    Community Member
    edited February 2017
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    Great, don't forget the bulk local storage removal for the platforms as well.

    It would be great to have a bit more control over what gets downloaded in a bulk download and what doesn't.
    On an iOS device with only 8GB of storage, a bulk download could be the death of the device's storage.

    My suggestion is to make more use of those wonderful tags our items can have.

    Have an option to say:

    Auto download all documents
      [  ] that have the tag [– type tag –] 
      [  ] but not the tag [– type tag –] 
    

    e.g.

     Auto download all documents
       [√] that have the tag [– download me –] 
       [√] but not the tag [– iPad –]
    
  • @skippingrock : yup, the storage limits on mobile device are actually what made us decide to not download anything by default.

    That's quite the interesting idea you've got there, to use tags to drive something like that. I was thinking something along the lines of "Automatically download documents less than [--size--]". But I can see cases where your idea would be more powerful. I love clever use of tags like that.

    Rick

  • skippingrock
    skippingrock
    Community Member
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    Tagging and taxonomy is an IA's daily bread! :chuffed:

  • Hah. Indeed. :)

    Rick

  • PJ1
    PJ1
    Community Member
    edited August 2017
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    Hi. I was just wondering if there was any update on this question regarding downloading documents with a 1P account for offline use?

    At the moment I am using a stand-alone licence and my attachments are available so I can share or print without an internet connection.

    This wouldn't be for reams of stuff, just important things like passports, drivers licenses and legal documents required overseas.

    Would really love to change to a families account but this is a bit of a deal-breaker.

    It was mentioned at the beginning of this thread by Jacob, that documents could be downloaded while you still have an internet connection, but does this mean being downloaded to another app, or do they stay within 1P and therefore encrypted and safe until needed?

    Looking through the 1P Account info, there isn't much about documents and accessibility.

    Thanks for the help guys!

  • Jacob
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    @PJ1 Hey there, and thanks for asking. :) Documents can indeed be downloaded when you have an internet connection. Once you download a document, it's available offline and you can use it from that device wherever you are. Offline documents stay in 1Password and are encrypted with your Master Password locally like the rest of your data. Hope this helps!

  • PJ1
    PJ1
    Community Member
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    That's exactly what I needed to hear!

    Is there more information somewhere about how documents work in a 1P account as opposed to attachments with a separate licence?

    Thanks for your help Jacob.

  • Jacob
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    @PJ1 No problem! At the moment we haven't documented documents (great phrase, I know) because they're fairly straightforward: To add a document or attachment in 1Password for Mac, you drag the file to an open item in the app. To add a document in 1Password for iOS, edit an item and tap Add a File — this is only available with a 1Password account. To view them, you just click the document in 1Password for Mac or tap View Document in 1Password for iOS. The other apps are similar as well. Let us know if you have some questions though!

  • PJ1
    PJ1
    Community Member
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    As a final question, if I have a 1P account and add a document - either on Mac or iOS - can that document (with an internet connection available) be downloaded using the iOS app and then stored within the app for offline use?

    ... a Right answer to this question will allow you to finish your coffee in peace and put your feet up for the rest of the day/evening... promise!

  • Jacob
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    @PJ1 Yep! Once you view the document, it's downloaded locally. You can then access it on the device you viewed it on anytime. I'd recommend trying things for yourself to get a better idea of how it actually works, but from a user's perspective all you have to do is add a document, then open it in 1Password to make it available offline. In 1Password for Mac, you can select multiple documents and make them all available offline by choosing Item > Download Local Copy from the menu bar. :) Cheers!

  • PJ1
    PJ1
    Community Member
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    @Jacob That's great. Thanks for all your help!

  • Frank
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    Hi @PJ1 - On behalf of Jacob, you're very welcome! Please feel free to contact us anytime, we're always here if you need us. Have a great weekend!

  • airs0urce
    airs0urce
    Community Member
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    Hello. I have many files too. And now downloading each of them on mobile is a pain. Auto-download option in settings will help a lot. Or at least button to download all files.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni
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    It will have to be a lot of changes over multiple apps, so not short term, but it's something we'd like to add in the future. Thanks for the feedback! :)

This discussion has been closed.