Has support for viewing documents offline been implemented yet for 1PW 8?

@NSPredicate

As long as you use the desktop client app then any "attached files" would be viewable. You can test this yourself by disconnecting from the internet for a period of time. Then attempting to open the document. The desktop apps keep a copy of your data local to your device. This would be included in your Time Machine backups.

The original poster in the other topic was asking about his iPhone.

Thank you for the swift reply, @1P_Tommy. Since the linked thread was in the Mac subforum and the person had mentioned that they are using Monterey, I had assumed that the Mac version was also affected by this limitation. Thanks for clearing this up!

That said, I think it would be really useful, if the iOS version of 1PW 8 also permanently stored all attached documents locally, so there could never be any surprises when you need to quickly access an attached document but don't have a working internet connection.

@NSPredicate

No problem at all. Also, thanks I'll move that ticket to the respective category.

I 100% agree with you on iOS. I've added myself as part of that feature request. I'll gladly do the same for you.

ref: PB-32638242

I also strongly agree that 1Password iOS should be enhanced with the functionality to store all documents locally, so that they can be accessed while offline. I was not aware of this limitation which, under some circumstances, could be very problematic.

P.S.: Until this is addressed, please consider updating the statement "1Password lets you securely store your most important files, so they’re always available when you need them" to correctly reflect the current situation on iOS.

@NSPredicate

So I've been testing this on my device with one of the latest betas and looks like the team is working more and more on this. It appears the items are kept once viewed just like they were in 1Password 7. To try this open 1Password 8, view an attached document, lock 1Password and enter airplane mode. Open and unlock 1Password and the attached item should continue to be viewable. * I am not sure if this is yet possible outside of the beta.

Edit: Correction looks to be in the current release too.

@1P_Tommy, thanks for following up. Unfortunately, I cannot test this myself, because, as I wrote above, I am still using 1PW the original way (i.e., with a local vault and a perpetual license), and I'm very conflicted about whether I should switch to the cloud subscription model or switch password managers altogether. If the Mac version of 1PW 8 had not stored attached documents locally, that would have actually made my decision much, much easier (but don't get me wrong, I'm very glad it does store them locally 😉).

Anyway, back to the actual topic: I think what you are describing might just be temporary caching of viewed documents. I remember reading on some forum about 1PW 8 behaving this way and it then regularly purging this cache at some point later. In fact, reading about this behavior was what alarmed me in the first place and motivated me to investigate further here on the support forums.

Thank you for raising this @NSPredicate
I just tried to view attachments on my Mac without connection and I could not open the PDFs! this is absolutely shocking!! I need to still be able to have a local copy as I frequently refer to documents when offline. This was never a problem with 1P7.
Is there really no way to force download a copy?

Following up? how do I ensure a copy of my data is stored locally? if not mobile, at least on desktop? what if 1Password were to go down?

1Password 8 fetches attachments and documents when needed. This is done so that your device doesn't have to download all of your documents and files on each new device which might use up a lot of data on metered connections.

Once you've used the 1Password for Mac app to view a file, such as a PDF, that file will be cached and made available on your Mac even if you're offline or don't have a connection to 1Password.com. You can test this by viewing your PDF once, then disconnecting from WiFi and the Internet and viewing the file when offline. 🙂

-Dave

1Password 8 fetches attachments and documents when needed.
Well, 1Password 8 tries to fetch the attachments and documents when needed, but if you don't have a working internet connection or the 1PW server is not reachable, you simply can't access the documents. That is the whole point of this thread.

I get that 99% of the time, this is not an issue and people won't notice this limitation, but in the rare cases when they do run into this limitation, they can be in for a nasty surprise. In a worst case scenario, where Agile Bits is successfully hit by an APT group, a rogue employee, or any unknown event that we currently lack the imagination to anticipate, those documents could even be completely lost forever! Again, I know that this happening is not particularly likely, but I find "trust us, it will probably be fine" just really problematic in the context of secure document storage.

I can understand that for larger Teams who attach many documents, an option to opt-out of local document storage could be useful, but for the vast majority of users -- most of whom are currently blissfully unaware of this risk -- attached documents really should be stored/synced locally. This is even more true in light of the fact that the official https://support.1password.com/files/ for attached files does not even contain a small footnote about the fact that "so they’re always available when you need them" is actually not completely true. If you are worried about metered connections, you could simply do what apps such as podcast clients do and only download new and changed attachments when the device is connected to Wi-Fi.

Since (temporary) caching after viewing a document is already working, it seems like you have already done most of the work needed to re-implement reliable local document storage. I really, really hope it will be implemented by the time the "classic" 1PW browser extension stops working. It would not only give peace of mind to people such as myself, who value control over the safety of their data, it would also spare others from unfortunate surprises when they discover that they can't access a document because they are without a working internet connection.