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    Backing Up Your Keychain

    Regular backups are important for all data, but they are critical for your passwords. When starting over after a catastrophe, having your 1Password Agile Keychain file backed up will allow you to get back up and running fast.

    What to Back up?

    The most important thing to back up is your Agile Keychain, the file that holds the encrypted copies of all your 1Password information. You can adjust your backup settings in the 1Password > Preferences > Backup window:

    1p Backup Preferences

    You may also want to back up your settings and license information:

    Local Backups

    1Password will automatically create backups of your Agile Keychain on your local hard drive. The frequency and location of these backups can be set in the 1Password > Preferences > Backup window.

    At this time, 1Password does not support creating backups on external or remote drives like USB flash drives, Time Capsules, or FTP servers, in order to ensure the integrity and reliability of your backups. 1Password’s built-in backup feature must be pointed at your local hard drive. In order to backup these files to a safer location like an external drive or a Time Capsule, we highly recommend using an official backup application or service like Apple’s Time Machine, CrashPlan, or ChronoSync. Many of our recommended sync solutions for keeping your Agile Keychain in sync between two or more Macs also double as backup solutions.

    Remote Backups

    While important, local backups do not provide any protection from catastrophe such as a hard disk failure. To protect from data loss in such a situation, please perform regular backups to a remote drive.

    Restoring a Keychain from Backup

    To replace your current keychain with a backup, run the main 1Password application and click File > Restore Keychain from Backup. A window displaying your saved backups will appear; select one and click the Restore Backup button.


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