SOS. 1Password is so confusing

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rdrd
rdrd
Community Member
in Mac

I don't even know where to begin with the confusion. Except that 1Password has now resulted in me getting locked out of my email. I know I should be using it. But it is so confusing, while at the same time positioning itself to be user friendly... which is even more irritating.

Basic struggles I'm having:
1) I have a laptop, desktop, phone and iPad. All Mac. The promos suggested I could sink between all devices. But it seems I'll have to buy a separate download for my desktop, since I originally installed on my laptop. If this is not the case, please explain how to do this, and please don't just link to one of the tutorials, because I've been through them and they are not helpful for me. My iPhone is synced with my Laptop. (Although I will say, the interface photos depicted in your tutorials did not always match what I was looking at when I tried to sync over Dropbox).
2) Things have not been automatic, as the promos suggests. It is inconsistent. And extremely frustrating. Particularly on my phone.
3) I do not understand why sometimes I have to do a "new" login, and sometimes they just appear in the file. So I have multiple "Twitter" - all with different passwords as it generates a new one each time.

I'm not sure if this was built for super tech savvy people, but we lay folk would also like security.

  • Very Frustrated.

Comments

  • Stephen_C
    Stephen_C
    Community Member
    Options

    If you already have 1P for Mac installed on your laptop you can install it on your desktop if:

    1. you bought 1P for Mac from the Mac App Store and both the laptop and desktop use the same Apple ID (or if they're both using family sharing under OS X Yosemite);
    2. you bought direct from the AgileBits store (which allows you to use 1P on more than one of your machines).

    If you can't remember where you bought 1P for Mac, and assuming you're using 1P4 or 1P5, go to 1P > About 1Password and see what it says there.

    In order to sync your 1P data you will need 1P for iOS on your iOS devices. It's a separate product from 1P for Mac but is free from the App Store (accessed via your iOS devices) with an in app purchase to enable pro features.

    Things have not been automatic

    I'm afraid you'll need to explain that problem rather more because at the moment I'm not quite sure what you mean. What has not been working in the way you expect it to work?

    I do not understand why sometimes I have to do a "new" login, and sometimes they just appear in the file.

    If you go to a new login page and create new details 1P will prompt you asking if you want to save that login. What are the differences between your multiple Twitter logins? Are they for different URLs, for example, or using different passwords?

    Stephen

  • danco
    danco
    Volunteer Moderator
    Options

    If you bought 1PW direct from Agile, it requires a license file. You need to have the file on each machine you use. You should have it in an email on your laptop, and can just move it across by whatever method you prefer. Or it can be downloaded again from Agile's web site.

    Note that each machine you use (and, in fact, each account on a particular machine) needs a copy of the license file.

    By the way, while you are sorting this out, you can still use 1PW in trial mode - this is fully featured for 30 days.

    How were you locked out of your email? I assume you used 1PW to create a new password. If you access your email by a web browser, you should still be able to access it using the new password. If you use an actual email program (Apple Mail or something else) then, of course, you will have to change the password in the program.

  • Megan
    Megan
    1Password Alumni
    Options

    Hi @rdrd,

    First of all, I just want to apologize. I'm so sorry to hear that you've been so frustrated with 1Password! It looks like you've gotten some great advice here already, but just to be sure, I'll answer your questions again.

    1) I have a laptop, desktop, phone and iPad. All Mac. The promos suggested I could sink between all devices. But it seems I'll have to buy a separate download for my desktop, since I originally installed on my laptop. If this is not the case, please explain how to do this, and please don't just link to one of the tutorials, because I've been through them and they are not helpful for me.

    1Password is sold separately per platform, so you will need a separate license for your Mac computers and your iOS devices. However, you certainly don't need to purchase 1Password separately for each computer or device. With respect to the desktop version of 1Password, there are two places that you may have purchased 1Password:

    Purchasing 1Password directly from our our website

    Now, I took a quick look in our back office records, and I did not find a license for Mac matching the email address that you have attached to your forum account. If you've purchased directly from AgileBits and would like some help tracking down your license, please send me a private message with your full name and alternate email addresses that you may have used when you made the purchase.

    If you already have your license details handy, installing on a new computer is as simple as downloading from our downloads page. We've got instructions on how to add your license to 1Password in our knowledgebase, but if these are confusing, please let me know which step you're stuck on and I'd be happy to walk you through.

    Purchasing 1Password from the Mac App Store

    If you purchased 1Password from the Mac App Store, your license is tied to your AppleID. To install on a new computer, simply open up the App Store and make sure that you are logged in with the same AppleID as you made the original purchase. 1Password will show up in your 'Purchased' history.

    2) Things have not been automatic, as the promos suggests. It is inconsistent. And extremely frustrating. Particularly on my phone.

    As Stephen suggests, we'll need a bit more detail here. It seems like you're syncing with Dropbox. This process should be automatic. If things are getting tangled up somewhere, we'd be happy to investigate further.

    3) I do not understand why sometimes I have to do a "new" login, and sometimes they just appear in the file. So I have multiple "Twitter" - all with different passwords as it generates a new one each time.

    When getting started with 1Password, I've found the most useful option is the 'Automatically ask to Save new Logins' option in Preferences > Browser. With this enabled, 1Password will prompt you to save a new Login item (a username and password combination with a URL that can be used to sign in to a website) whenever it notices that you are filling in those details. So you don't have to bother with trying to create new items in the main 1Password app. Simply use the internet as you normally would, and you'll quickly build your database of Logins.

    If you're seeing multiple items for Twitter, it could mean several things. Either you have multiple Login items saved (username/password combinations), or you've been using the password generator in the browser extension while the Twitter page is active on your screen.

    Could you tell me a bit more about what you're seeing?

    I'm not sure if this was built for super tech savvy people, but we lay folk would also like security.

    We strive to make 1Password as user-friendly and convenient as possible, and I'm sorry that we have fallen a bit short for you here. We're happy to continue working with you here until 1Password becomes a more familiar part of your workflow. Security is so important for everyone, perhaps even more so for the less-tech-savvy community. :)

This discussion has been closed.