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Personal Account use at Work

mckinzie
mckinzie
Community Member

Hello!

The company I work for isn’t in the market for a password manager (that is, Teams subscription). I however, would like to use 1Password at work. I already have my work passwords saved on my standalone license for when I work on my personal computer at home.

If I get a personal account, is it against your Terms of Service for me to use it on my corporate computer for my use?

Thank you!

Comments

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    Welcome to the forum, @mckinzie! Heavens, no, you're not violating the terms of your purchase. Any 1Password license you own allows you to install and use the version of 1Password for which it was purchased on as many devices of the type it runs on (Mac, Windows), for as long as you have hardware to run it on. It doesn't guarantee you free upgrades to new versions, but you can use what you purchased on as many Macs (or PCs, or both, depending on what you bought) as you personally own and use. And that's without using a 1Password membership.

    If you choose to use your standalone license at work as well, you would need to have a method to keep your two devices in sync, which (for standalone licenses) would be Dropbox, iCloud (if you have Macs in both places) or WLAN. When you start having multiple devices across multiple platforms, a 1password.com Individual account starts making more and more sense, not just from a cost standpoint but also a syncing standpoint, however. If you'd like to set one up to try for 30 days free, visit the main 1Password sign-up page and create your account! And don't hesitate to ask us any questions you may have. :)

  • mckinzie
    mckinzie
    Community Member

    Thanks @Lars! Since I would be able to use my 1Password.com Personal Account at work, this looks like it will work great! Thanks again!

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni
    edited January 2018

    @mckinzie - you're quite welcome! Drop by any time if you have issues or questions, or check out the 1Password Support pages - often, you can find answers to common questions/issues right there, without having to wait for one of us to reply to you. Cheers! :)

  • pgreenx
    pgreenx
    Community Member

    Hi there - I just installed my personal 1password at work. I have a fully paid for membership (or whatever you call it) and run two vaults (personal and work passwords) for use on my personal PC and phone. I set up 1password at work to avoid having to use my personal phone to access work passwords.

    For security purposes, is there any way to only allow my work vault to show up at work but still see both vaults on my personal PC and phone?
    Also, I like having the personal vault be the "write" default for personal devices but would like the opposite while at work
    Thanks

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    Welcome to the forum, @pgreenx! So, if you have an individual 1password.com membership, your options are a little more limited. You can of course have as many vaults as you like, but the main "Personal" vault will always be available. In 1Password 7 for Mac, under the Preferences > Vaults menu, you can set local clients (apps) not to show certain vaults in the All Vaults view, but they will still be available directly.

    That's also where you can set 1Password 7 for Mac to save to any of your vaults by default (the "Vault for Saving" drop-down at the bottom of that window).

    What you can't do (which I think you're asking about) is to have ONLY the "work" vault visible on your work computer, but both on your home Mac. About the only way I can see that being possible would be putting your "work" items in the Personal vault, and then creating a standalone vault on your home Mac which is not part of your 1password.com membership/account. That way, you'd effectively make your account into your your "work" vault, and have a separate, standalone vault for your personal items. I don't recommend that, however, as it would require you set up sync separately for the standalone vault, necessitating Dropbox or iCloud or WLAN.

    Another way to do it would be to create a second 1password.com account, for just your work items, and sign into both on your personal devices, but only your "work" membership on your work device(s).

  • pgreenx
    pgreenx
    Community Member
    edited September 2018

    Thanks for the fast response. I thought this was the case but hoping not.
    Is there a reason this cant be done (I would think a lot of people would want the same thing)?
    Separately, is a second 1password account linked to my paid subscription or do I have to pay again?

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @pgreenx - I don't think there's any technical reason it couldn't be done, but there definitely would be an extra layer of complexity to the code. Some of it has to do with the assumptions about how people will use 1Password, and the fact that we can't make it all things to all people. An individual account is the most-basic of 1Password accounts: it's designed to be used by a single person, so it's assumed that person will want to see their data. Everywhere. When people have "work" accounts, that's usually something set up by the employer themselves, which would mean the employee might have two accounts; their personal 1Password membership and the 1Password Teams account from their employer. In fact, this is what I myself have: a personal account for my private data, and I'm also part of the 1Password Business account for my work items. I don't worry about signing into both these accounts in 1Password for Mac on my "work" Mac, because I'm the only person who uses this computer, and just because I can see both accounts in 1Password doesn't mean my employer can now read my personal data. They can't.

    What you're asking for can sort of be accomplished if you have a 1Password Families account, because with 1Password Families, you're allowed to have guest accounts at no extra cost (up to 5). You can create a guest account for your "work" personality, and instead of signing into your account on your work device(s), sign into this guest account instead. But individual accounts do not have guest privileges because, well, they're for a single person. As I said, it's not that we couldn't set it up differently, but the use-case for wanting to see only some of your data on certain devices isn't something we see too much of, and requires a more-advanced feature set that's currently part of only the more-expensive multi-person accounts (Business, Families). Can you maybe share what it is you're trying to accomplish or prevent by what you're asking for? I might be able to help you figure out a more-streamlined solution.

  • zdlyons
    zdlyons
    Community Member

    Hi @Lars,

    That's a great explanation. I've been working to solve for the "separation of work and non-work personalities" problem today, and fortunately I was able to do that by creating a separate work Family Member. With that work personality, I was able to create a vault for all my work credentials and share it with my non-work personality (account owner) so that I can access work apps on my personal phone. The solution works great, but I ran into an issue that led me to this article in the first place.

    I want to add a Family Organizer so that I can have my access recovered in the case that I have some lapse in memory, or something happens to me. But, if I do that, that Family Organizer will have access to add themselves to the vault I created that holds my work credentials. I trust them not to do this, but the possibility of access alone would be a breach of my organization's standard security policies.

    My suggested feature add that would solve this for users who find themselves in my situation is one of two things:

    1. Allow Family Organizers to delete vaults, and restore user access, but not to add themselves to other user's vaults... OR
    2. A new feature that allows you to specify users as Adult or Child users on creation so that #1 is true for Adults, but Family Organizers can add themselves to Child users' vaults. (I don't see what the value is of being able to add oneself to a vault unless it's for some parental administrative purpose.)

    If I have multiple Family Organizers, I don't want them to be able to add themselves to any vault that's not the standard/original "private" vault. It should only be by invitation adult user-to-adult user.

    Thanks for the consideration,
    Zach

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @zdlyons - I understand what you mean regarding rules about keeping work data sacrosanct, and I wish I had a better answer for you. But 1Password Families is, well, for Families, not for corporations or even small businesses with such restrictions. One of the reasons it's comparatively the least-expensive of all our offerings is that we have a soft spot for families, but it does come with some assumptions about who's going to be using it, and how they'll be able to do so. We always urge people who have multi-user 1Password accounts to have at least one other Admin who can help the primary owner/admin recover his/her account if they forget their Master Password or lose their Secret Key. It's just good practice.

    In 1Password Families, that role is the Family Organizer and (for example) both my wife and I hold that role, for just such potential emergencies. But I don't store my work credentials in my own personal 1Password Families account for just such reasons -- it would be a violation of the agreements I signed here for my wife to even have the potential of access to this company's data. In my case, that's solved by AgileBits itself making me a member of the 1Password Business account for AgileBits. Thus, I am a member of both my own family account and the AgileBits business account, and that's what keeps the data separated and siloed while still allowing me to view/use both.

    In your case, i'd say you've got two options:

    1. You can continue with your current setup and just not designate another Family Organizer. That's not a great solution, because it would mean you would be the single point of failure for your entire account, but that's no worse than if you had an individual account -- you're the only one who can help you, and if you lose your own Secret Key or forget your Master Password, the account needs to be reset. Not ideal, but workable if you are confident in your own ability not to lose or forget your credentials.
    2. You can switch to a 1Password Teams account. This is more expensive but it also allows for a greater degree of control -- you can give another team member in 1Password Teams the power to recover accounts without making them an Admin who could potentially add him/herself to vaults you wish to keep private.

    The bind you find yourself in is one I've seen a small handful of times previously mentioned by others, but it's one we don't have any current plans to alter, given the purpose of 1Password Families and the concurrent significant discount it enjoys. The 1Password Families model is unique among our offerings in that it assumes a certain level of trust among members that would be neither expected nor appropriate in most business situations - and the feature set reflects that. We do have account types with much more extensive, fine-grained control of features (as I mentioned above and you suggested in your reply), but those require significantly more work both to code and to maintain -- and their price reflects it.

    Let me know if you have any additional questions.

  • zdlyons
    zdlyons
    Community Member

    @Lars

    No, that makes complete sense from 1Password's business perspective. Thank you for your thoughtful answer.

    Best,
    Zach

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @zdlyons - you're quite welcome! Thanks for the thoughtful suggestions, and feel free to drop by any time if you have other ideas or questions. :) :+1:

  • gandalf_saxe
    gandalf_saxe
    Community Member

    @Lars If using both a Family and Teams account on Mac, how is it handled if the master passwords are not the same?

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @gandalf_saxe - the 1Password for Mac app will use the password of the first account you sign in with as the Master Password for the app itself. Accounts added subsequently in Preferences > Accounts will require your full credentials (email address, Secret Key and Master Password) to add the account into 1Password for Mac, but after that, they will be unlocked with whatever Master Password already was in use. If you're setting up 1Password for Mac from scratch and you have multiple accounts, you may want to think about which one to add first, for this reason. Hope that helps! :)

  • gandalf_saxe
    gandalf_saxe
    Community Member

    @Lars Thanks, yes that helps. I'd suggest you add this piece of information to this help article ;) https://support.1password.com/multiple-accounts/

    Is there any way to change which master password unlocks the app containing all the accounts after the first one has been set up? Or is the only possibility to re-install the app? You might want to add a feature to change this, but I can see why it's not high priority :)

  • @gandalf_saxe

    Thanks for the suggestion. For now you'd need to use the 1Password > Help > Troubleshooting > Reset all 1Password Data option and then sign into your accounts. The first one you sign in to is the one that'll be used for unlocking. Please note we normally recommend using the same Master Password for all 1Password accounts. :+1:

    Ben

This discussion has been closed.