1Password data file sync solutions
All of your 1Password information—including Logins, Secure Notes, Software Licenses, Wallet items, and more—is saved in a data file named 1Password.agilekeychain. If you want to be able to use your 1Password information on more than one computer, there are a number of third-party solutions for keeping this file in sync, our personal favorite being Dropbox.
Dropbox
Dropbox is a file syncing and sharing service that works on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, and Blackberry. It skyrocketed in popularity in recent years because of its security, fast sync speed, reliability, and flexibility. It offers 2 GB of space—far more than the Agile Keychain needs—for free! When you install Dropbox, it creates a folder on your computer that looks and acts like any other folder. The difference is that when you save or update files in this folder, the changes are immediately synchronized with your Dropbox storage space “in the cloud” and any other computers on which you’ve installed Dropbox.
Dropbox features “versioning,” which means it maintains previous versions of a file in case you ever need to recover an old edition. While all files are kept private to your account by default, Dropbox also allows you to share files and folders with other users and even collaborate on them.
Because of these and other features, including support for 1Password’s unique Mac-based “file package” format, Dropbox is a great choice for syncing your 1Password data file between all your computers. In fact, 1PasswordAnywhere works great from Dropbox’s website! Here’s how you can configure Dropbox syncing on your Mac.
Other sync solutions
There are many third-party sync solutions made by other software companies, including SugarSync, FolderShare, ChronoSync, rsync (arRsync), and Unison. While this is not an exhaustive list, it includes some popular options and is a great starting point for finding a solution that suits your needs. If you need to a solution to sync with 1Password on your iOS device, however, Dropbox is currently the only option. Here’s how you can get automatic syncing across all your devices.
File-based sync solutions are very simple in nature, and simple is good! By being simple, these tools are fast, robust, and many (like Dropbox) even provide revision history so you can “go back in time” and restore accidentally deleted information. As well, they are usually able to sync a changed file to all your machines in just a few seconds. By doing things so quickly, the chance of modifying the same file on multiple machines simultaneously is greatly reduced.
A note about MobileMe and iDisk
NOTE: Because of the issues we and our customers have experienced when using iDisk to sync the 1Password data file, we recommend against syncing via MobileMe’s iDisk. Instead, please use one of the file-based syncing solutions described in this document.