Need Help With Setup

Hi @randym,

Thanks for writing in!

Share the primary vault and set up folders: me, my wife, etc. If we go this route, how would we sync (two Dropbox accounts for the Macs)?

We generally don't recommend that you share your primary vault but rather the secondary vaults. You use the primary vault for your own use but you can share the secondary vault with your wife and/or other folks. In this case, you can tell 1Password to create the sync vault file into a shared folder in your Dropbox folder. That's the folder you share with your wife. Your wife just have to double-click on that file and 1Password will prompt to ask for the vault password to embed it in your wife's 1Password database.

From there, 1Password will sync the data in that vault between both of you.

How would we sync with our iPads (is iCloud an option)? This option might be overkill (i.e., we'd be sharing items we wouldn't have to), but it seems easier to manage. (I think I'd prefer the option to share a folder within the primary vault.)

In the iOS app, you can add the secondary vaults via Dropbox and it even lets you connect multiple Dropbox accounts as well. You just go to the Settings > Vaults to add the secondary vaults.

As for the primary vault, note that your iCloud account has to be used on all iOS devices to pick up the 1Password data, so you can't share a specific file with your wife if she has her own AppleID for iCloud. That's one of the main reasons why you can choose iCloud, Wi-Fi and/or Dropbox for the primary vault but only Dropbox for the secondary vaults.

For secondary vaults, you can use Dropbox to sync those vaults anywhere and with anybody you want.

We're still working on figuring out how you can select multiple vaults to sync with iCloud and Wi-Fi but only for your own devices only, not for sharing with other users.

Set up a shared non-primary vault. But, unless I'm missing something I don't really like this option. I can only sync the primary vault with the iPad, right?

The primary vault can be sync'ed over iCloud, Dropbox, and Wi-Fi. The secondary vaults can only be sync'ed over Dropbox at the moment.

Note using iCloud also restrict you to the Apple platforms, meaning that iCloud is for iOS and OS X only. If you have an Android or Windows in your environment, then you'd be best to use Dropbox for your primary vault as well.

But wouldn't that be more difficult to keep in sync—i.e., if changes are made in one place, (primary or shared) they won't automatically carry over to the other vault, is that right?

If you go this route of putting everything in the primary vault, which you don't need to, that is correct. Copying items from primary vault into the shared vault does not link both items, which means changes won't carry over to the other vault. Thus, I'd recommend splitting your data into separate vaults.

Note that we're working on something to simplify the ability to let you view all of your items at once from all vaults, so you don't always have to switch the vault to find what you're looking for.