How to enable the primary vault pwd to unlock 1Password?

diasleo

Hi,

I have 1Password family. I used to sync with dropbox, but I’m using 1password cloud services for syncing. It’s all working fine. I’m syncing my 1P vault with 2 MacBooks, 1 iPhone and 1 iPad. My iCloud vault used to have a 4 digit password. And, as you guys know 1P cloud demands 10 digit password.
On one of my laptops, I kept my original primary vault with it’s 4 digit pwd. And so, I can unlock 1Password with ease. However, on my 2nd Mac I’ve deleted my primary vault, And now I have to type a 10 digit pwd all the time. I know it’s safe, but It can be a pain sometimes.

So, my question is, how do I get my primary vault with just a 4 digit pwd again and use it to unlock 1Password?

Many thanks and keep the good work.

Leonardo Dias

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1Password Version: 6.71
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: OS X 10.12.5
Sync Type: iCloud and 1Password sync

ThomasK

You can re-create a Primary vault from Preferences->Advanced. There, check the "Local Vaults" box at the bottom; it's labelled "Allow creation of vaults outside of 1Password accounts". The act of checking it will create the Primary vault (it'll ask for your Master password).

You can then go into Preferences->Security and a new "Change Master Password" button should have appeared at the top of that section. Click on that, provide your Master Password (I assume that's the 10-digit one you refer to), and you can then change it to that 4 digit password you mentioned. Note that that will change the Master on your local machine only. The Master for your cloud account is unaffected by that change.

P.S. FWIW -- and I suspect you already know this -- but in general, a 4-digit password these days is essentially a non-existent password in the face of even a depressed and unmotivated attacker. I say in general because in theory I suppose that with 1PW the dangers of such a really short password are mitigated by the fact that in addition to that user-generatd password, the 1PW machinery makes use of the much longer AgileBits-generated secret key. That said, I'm not sure that benefits the desktop situation. Since the secret key is not asked for when using the 1PW desktop app (other than at setup time), my assumption has always been that my (local) Master password is all that stands between my secret stuff and a Bad Guy sho gets his hands on my laptop. If I'm right then, long story short, once you've recreated your Primary vault and are changing the password, maybe consider upping the length of the local password to more than four characters! ;-) Nine characters, including symbols, is probably an absolute minimum these days, to avoid being brute-forced. Obligatory xkcd reference: https://xkcd.com/936/

P.P.S. While I'm in telling-people-I-don't-know-to-increase-the-length-of-their-passwords mode, I assume that when you said "10 digit password" you meant "10 character password" -- i.e. you're using not just numerics, but also alphas and symbols. Using only digits (i.e. numerics) would be bad. But you knew that. I'll shutup now :-)

rudy

@ThomasK,

No reason to shut up at all, all good advice.

@diasleo,

I might also mention that it could be a good idea to save your 1Password.com credentials into that local vault; in the event that you start to think that your account's password is the shorter/weaker 4 character password. Knowing both your master password and the secret key are critical to maintaining access to your data. If you lose one or both of them the data will effectively be lost to you, unless you happen to be using a family account and have additionally designated family members as being part of the recovery group.

Rudy

diasleo

Hi,

Thanks for the advice @ThomasK and @rudy. I was able to try it now and it worked like a charm.

I'm well aware of the weakness of a 4 character pwd. That's why I'm keeping the 10 character on my iPad and iPhone. My laptops have their SSDs encrypted and require a 8 character pwd to login with a 5min auto-lock.
But As I use 1pwd a lot during the day, the 10 character pwd was a bit annoying ;-)

Thanks

bundtkate

Hey, @diasleo! I'm glad you were able to get that set up. As someone who often mistypes her Master Password (and curses at her computer screen as though it will help somehow), I can definitely see the appeal. Hope it helps make your day-to-day a bit smoother. :chuffed:

diasleo

@bundtkate it sure did.

Thanks

Jacob

On behalf of Kate, you're welcome. :) We're here if you have some other questions!