Syncing three vaults to one.

I have three local standalone vaults created on my Mac. I am also running Parallels and there is a local vault in my Windows virtual machine. I used to sync one of the macOS vaults to the Windows local vault. Recently I synced the other two macOS vaults to the Windows local vault since I understand you can only have one local vault in Windows. When I did that I found that on the macOS side all the items in the local vaults had been copied to other local vaults which totally destroyed the point of having them.

My question is: how do I undo it so that the items appear in their correct vault as before. Also, is it possible to have three macOS standalone vaults synced to one Windows vault at all?


1Password Version: 7.4.3
Extension Version: 70403002
OS Version: 10.14.6
Sync Type: local
Referrer: forum-search:sync three local vaults between mac and parllesl

Comments

  • ag_ana
    ag_ana
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @volcano2!

    I used to sync one of the macOS vaults to the Windows local vault. Recently I synced the other two macOS vaults to the Windows local vault since I understand you can only have one local vault in Windows.

    Can you please clarify what sync method you have been using so far to do this?

    Also, is it possible to have three macOS standalone vaults synced to one Windows vault at all?

    No, each vaults syncs separately. If you want to sync everything to a single vault, you need to have a single vault too. If you have three vaults, you can only sync to three separate destination vaults.

  • volcano2
    volcano2
    Community Member

    Hi @ag_ana

    To sync I went Preferences, clicked on the Sync tab and liked each of the three macOS local folders to the same Windows Local vault. I suppose this means that as each of the macOS vaults added items to the Windows vault, the Windows vault would then sync back each item to all the macOS vaults.

    Is there any other way to sync vaults - maybe in one direction only?

  • bundtkate
    edited March 2020

    Sync is bi-directions, @volcano2, but all versions of 1Password for Windows have supported syncing multiple vaults, so I think your trouble here ultimately comes down to a misunderstood premise. 1Password 4 for Windows specifically doesn't support the All Vaults view where you can see all 3 vaults at once, but it can open each individually and you can switch between vaults in the File menu so there shouldn't be a need to sync them all to a single location unless you need your Windows install to see all three vaults at the same time.

    To get the vaults back to normal, I'd suggest restoring backups on your Mac from before the vaults were merged:

    https://support.1password.com/backups/#you-can-also-create-and-restore-backups-of-standalone-vaults

    These will only restore locally so you'll need to reconfigure sync for each of these, ideally delete or move the mucked up vaults on your sync service to avoid confusion down the road, then open them on Windows. The best way to do that will depend on your chose sync service so if you need a hand with that, let me know how you're syncing and I'll take it from there.

    ref: LMX-26875-187

  • volcano2
    volcano2
    Community Member

    Thanks @bundtkate I have now recovered the Mac vaults as suggested and synced them successfully with the Windows version after I re-installed it. However, I have a new problem. I also sync to a second Windows PC. I had to re-install 1Password on the second PC and created new empty local folders with the same name as the first system. In the past, I was able to sync them by copying the opvault files from one to the other. This time, after I copied them from the first to the second PC, the vaults on the second PC were still empty. can you help understand what I may have done wrong?. Thanks.

  • You've just done things in a bit of the wrong order, @volcano2. Not to worry, should be a quick fix:

    1. Open and unlock 1Password.
    2. Choose 1Password > Open vault on this PC.
    3. Navigate to the OPVault folder and select it, then click "Select folder".
    4. Enter the vault's password when prompted.

    This should leave you with one happily populated vault and (it sounds like) one empty one. Double-check the populated one actually has your stuff. Assuming it does, press Ctrl + D, hover over the name of the empty vault, and click ... > Remove vault. That'll get rid of the empty one.

    You should be good from there, but I want to double-check I'm covering sync for you here. You mentioned syncing by moving OPVaults between PCs – is this how you normally sync? Manually by copying the folder? That'll work, but it's a bit of a chore and somewhat error prone since syncing isn't happening on the fly as you make a change. Can make it tough to ensure all changes from one machine make it to all others and visa versa. I know Dropbox isn't everyone's cup of tea and with just Macs and PCs in the mix, you totally have options, but I do recommend placing your OPVault in a folder all machines can access and pointing each to the same folder so they're truly sharing changes.

  • volcano2
    volcano2
    Community Member

    Thanks @bundtkate. Unfortunately that did not work. In case someone else is trying to solve the same problem I am documenting what did finally work for me.

    1. Click on the vaults area in the top left
    2. When you see the local vault(s) appear at the bottom of the vault list click on the three dots (...) to the right of it and click "Remove vault" then "Yes".
    3. Choose 1Password > Open vault on this PC.
    4. Navigate to the OPVault folder and select it, then click "Select folder".
    5. Enter the vault's password when prompted.
    6. Wait a bit for the vault to be populated.

    This seems to be working for me now and I am able to sync by copying vaults between systems.

    I understand that this exposes me to having the vaults get out of sync but I cannot think of any other way to have them sync without having a copy of those vaults "in the cloud" short of having some local network that is not internet connected (which seems a bit extreme just to keep your vaults synced). If you have any other ideas, I would love to hear them.

  • While there are other options that stick to just your home network, @volcano2, I think your method is probably best here. It keeps the process under your control rather than relying on third-party tooling that, frankly, was never designed for syncing data like your 1Password keychain. Ultimately, the encryption used to lock your vault (both on your devices and when you sync) is the primary protection given to your data and works just as well on a cloud service as it does locally, but you have to do what makes you comfortable and it's far better to be using a password manager and syncing manually than not using one at all. :+1:

  • volcano2
    volcano2
    Community Member

    Agreed. Thank you @bundtkate.

  • No trouble at all, @volcano2! I'm glad you're up and running and, of course, if we can do anything more to help, we'll be here. :chuffed:

This discussion has been closed.