Can't get rid of empty "primary" vault on my mac, when using existing vaults synced to Dropbox

purplelizard
purplelizard
Community Member

Hey folks,

I've had 1password for years, on easily 10 different computers. I started out using vaults, then got an online account for my company, but still use vaults for my personal files.

Today, setting up a new computer, I encountered new behavior. In order to add my existing vaults, I have to create an additional empty vault named "primary". I can't rename it, I can't change its icon, and when I delete it it also removes my existing vault.

I want my existing vault to be my primary vault.

What is going on? How do I get rid of it?

Thanks!

  • Liza

P.S. Yes, I can ignore it. But it places my actual primary vault at the bottom, nearly offscreen, which is inconvenient.


1Password Version: 7.2.5
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: OS X 10.14.2
Sync Type: Dropbox

Comments

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni
    edited April 2019

    @purplelizard: Thanks for reaching out. I’m sorry for the confusion! This is not true:

    In order to add my existing vaults, I have to create an additional empty vault named "primary".

    It sounds like you should have just chosen the option to sync the existing vault in Dropbox, rather than creating a new vault. If you reset the app, you can get a "do over" to set it up that way though. :)

  • purplelizard
    purplelizard
    Community Member

    Thanks @brenty.

    I started by signing in to my team account. Then I couldn't find a way to add a vault without creating a new one. So I double-clicked the vault from Finder, and it led me on this rigmarole. To be clear, at no point did I choose anything that says "create".

    I can try starting over with a vault first, before the team account, and see what happens, which I think is what you're suggesting I do. But I don't understand why order matters.

    • Liza
  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @purplelizard: It sounds like that's exactly what you want to do: setup the app with your local vault. If you setup the app with 1Password membership account first, you'd need to enable the local vaults option in Preferences > Advanced to even be able to add the vault in Dropbox. And since that is your personal data (I think), you'll probably want to have the app unlock with that vault's Master Password anyway, so doing that first should do the trick for you. Let me know how you get along. :)

  • purplelizard
    purplelizard
    Community Member

    Ok, that did work.

    Is this behavior a bug?

  • ag_ana
    ag_ana
    1Password Alumni

    @purplelizard No, this is working as expected: if you add your 1Password Membership account first, additional sync options are hidden unless you manually enable them. This is because most users with a Membership do not need additional sync methods since sync comes included with a Membership, and showing additional sync options would only cause confusion and potentially even lead to storing data in the wrong place.

    While if you have a standalone vault, you can then add a 1Password Membership account and in this case all of the sync methods would be shown, because you are already using an additional one.

    I hope this helps!

  • purplelizard
    purplelizard
    Community Member

    I'd like to give you the feedback that this design is incredibly confusing to those of us who do use more than one kind of vault, e.g. to share passwords with different people in different contexts.

    As a side note, I just set up 1password on a new windows computer earlier this week (it's been a rough week for my computers), and I added the team account first, then added the vaults, and it all worked exactly as I expected, very smoothly. The difference is surprising.

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @purplelizard - thanks for the feedback. There will always be some discrepancy in the exact behavior between our apps on different platforms because each platform's app is developed independently by a separate team. Obviously, much of the UI and UX is shared in common for certain aspects, but some of it can't be due to differences in the availability of various features on respective platforms. I'm glad you found the Windows workflow more to your personal taste, and thanks for the feedback about the Mac version.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @bjtspartan: Not so long ago, 1Password didn't support multiple vaults at all. When we added that, the first vault became "Primary" because it's the one whose Master Password is used to unlock the app; and it remains "Primary" because it will continue to work that way as long as it is present. I'm sorry you don't like the name, but it's confusing enough as it is. Having it be called something different on each person's device would be even more so.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @bjtspartan: Hey, thanks for getting back to me! That's not what I meant at all, but I'm sorry for giving you that impression. :blush: I didn't see where you made a request. But I tried to answer the question you asked about the first vault being called "Primary". I apologize if I misunderstood.

    Vault naming is not part of the setup process because when you've only got one vault it doesn't matter what it's called. And, ironically, when do you get more than one -- e.g. sharing within a family -- that's when it starts to matter that your first vault is named something standard. Imagine if someone created a vault and shared it with you, and it's named the same as one you already have. So with local vaults, the first is always "Primary": that's the one where you keep your own data, an the app unlocks with that Master Password. On the other hand, with 1Password memberships, the Personal/Private vault is always only accessible to you and can never be shared, even if you create and share additional vaults, so that takes the guesswork out of what is "safe" for your own data and what others may be able to access. People ask about this stuff a lot ("Who else can access my Private vault?"), and it makes a huge difference to be able to tell them unequivocally so they can know definitively that it's theirs and theirs alone.

    Anyway, can you clarify what you have in mind? I'm not really sure what you're after. I'd really like to get a better sense of what your goals are, what you're trying to accomplish. I can probably be more helpful then. Thanks! :)

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @bjtspartan - pretty sure you already said that. Was this a mistake?

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @Lars, @bjtspartan: I'm not 100% certain, but it's possible that something got stuck in the spam filter. If that was the case, apologies to both of you for any confusion. :lol:

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @bjtspartan: If you are not sure either, I am definitely not ruling out something weird with the forum software. :lol:

    Anyway, I agree with you about the 70%, but we'll keep working to bump that up even higher by iterating with future releases. :) Though, I will say that while we can certainly consider the specific request of allowing the Primary vault name to be editable, regardless of how long ago it was first brought up (probably on day one of multiple vaults!) it's just not something that comes up frequently at all, especially compared to other requests we get for features/improvements; so I don't think it's likely to be something we do in the near future, and there are literally seven apps that would need to be changed for that to work, not to mention considerations as far as not causing confusion for both users and those helping them. Sorry I don't have better news for you on that front.

    You mentioned that it doesn't matter what the primary vault is called until you have more than one and want to share it. That's exactly why I want that option! I do have a membership but I also share a vault (synced with dropbox) with a coworker who has a license copy of 1password. I am not aware of another option to share that vault with him. That means I have to have one locally stored vault and I want it to be named after the job it applies to so that I don't accidentally share passwords I don't mean to.

    I think there's some confusion here. Neither of you will have two "Primary" vaults in that case. The vault will probably be called "1Password" if you didn't set a name for it when creating it as a secondary vault, and you can right-click to rename it in the app if you want:

    The first one you setup in the app will always be called "Primary" in the app, which is what we've been discussing, because it has a special function: it determines how 1Password unlocks. But additional vaults can be renamed. Cheers! :)

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    Hey, no worries! Thanks so much for the kind words and your support! Keep in mind that we get feedback from 1Password users all over the place, not just here in the forum: email, Twitter, Facebook, and even more places that I am forgetting off the top of my head. So while we're happy you and others take the time to join the forum and discuss things like this with us here, we're listening everywhere we can. :chuffed:

This discussion has been closed.