How to Use Dropbox as the Ultimate Password Syncer

Lifehacker published an excellent post on How to Use Dropbox as the Ultimate Password Syncer and 1Password received an honorable mention.

The Agile Keychain format recently added to 1Password is perfect for syncing. Every entry is stored in a separate file and that solves the problem of conflicts. Also, 1Password automatically detects changes that were made and reloads the data when needed. It means that you can make changes on multiple computers at the same time.

Here is what Adam Pash from lifehacker says about this new feature:

I'm going to detail how this works with the open-source password manager, KeePass, and with the Mac-only manager, 1Password—the top two favorites in our recent Hive Five Best Password Managers.

...

1Password works like a charm with Dropbox, since this password manager automatically detects any changes and updates your keychain the moment a change is made to the Agile Keychain file. That means you're much less likely to end up with any sort of conflicts or lost information.

Great stuff!

Comments

[J. Binkhorst]

The version of onepassword I have (2.9.4) is not compatabel with the latest Firefox version 3.0.4.
This is very inconvenient, since quite some login procedures don't accept Safari.
Please inform me when you will repair this.

Kind regards.

[David A Teare]

@J: 1Password 2.9.4 should work fine with Firefox 3.0.4. It sounds like Firefox is remembering some old settings from the previous version. A full reinstall of the extensions should help.

To do this, open 1Password > Preferences > Browsers, and remove the checkbox beside Firefox. This is the window I am referring too:

http://img.skitch.com/20080601-tkg1ekd89m6aiqg83pkwjeyt6.png

Once uninstalled, start Firefox and verify that the 1Password extension is gone. This is the most important part, so be sure to check the Tools > Add-ons window and be sure 1Password is not listed.

Assuming the extension is gone, install the extension again by re-enabling the checkbox in the 1Password Browser preferences. When you start Firefox again this 1Password extension should appear this time, and any caches Firefox may have had should now be gone.

Now try again and see if the problem is resolved.

[jeff]

key chain file doesn't change date to reflect updates when located in the dropbox folder. Also Items removed from my1password keychain keep reappearing.

[David A Teare]

@Jeff: We've thought about updating the root keychain folder for each update so you can see the new date in the main agilekeychain "file". At present we follow the standard file system convention but may revisit this decision in the future.

As for files reappearing, I'm not sure how this is happening. Is DropBox the only sync system you are using or are there others as well? In any event, please email us at support (at) agile (dot) ws so we can help more.

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[Bob]

I read that article and it never says how to use 1Password with DropBox, unless I'm missing something. Also the link that they have to the "detailed information" doesn't work. If I have 1Password on my Mac, DropBox loaded on that same Mac along with on a PC, I log into my DropBox account, everything seems to be synced...now what? How do I get to the passwords from DropBox to use on the PC?

[David A Teare]

@Bob: The link to LifeHacker is quite high level. We have a much more detailed set of instructions for setting up 1Password w/ DropBox here:

https://kb.agile.ws/wiki/agile/SyncingUsingDropBox

Sorry for the confusion. This blog post was mainly about 1Password being listed by LifeHacker in the "Ultimate Password Syncer". I loved the sound of that :)

[Bob]

Right. I have read that too (and watched the screencastonline video). But if I am on a computer that is not on my network, how do I use my passwords? Say it is a PC, so now I don't have 1Password to sync to. I go to a web page (my bank for example), of course I don't have any idea what my password is anymore because I use 1Password. Dropbox is not going to fill in my password for me is it?

[David A Teare]

@Bob: Ah, I see what you mean now. As of this exact moment, you are right, DropBox will not help you on the PC side of things. It will sync your data their, but you cannot access it because it is encrypted.

What we are going to enable soon, however, is the ability to decrypt your data on any PC (windows or Linux) so you can at least have your data available when away from your Mac. You can then copy and paste your password into your accounts.

I have made a lot of progress on this feature but it is not ready for the light of day yet. Some time in the new year we will be releasing this.

[Bob]

@David: I see where you can open up the 1Password html file in DropBox and get the passwords from a my1Password interface, but some of the passwords do not seem to be there. They say 'undefined'.

[David A Teare]

@Bob: Sorry but the html version is not ready yet. You did find the secret though and this is exactly how it will work once I complete it over the next few releases.