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April 21, 2023
Question

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

  • April 21, 2023
  • 19 replies
  • 891 views

In https://1password.community/discussion/133135/see-downloaded-passport-and-travel-docs-into-the-document-section-offline thread from last year, it was stated that attached documents are not available offline in 1PW 8 because they are not stored locally.

According to https://support.1password.com/files/ support page, offline viewing seems to have been implemented in the meantime:

1Password lets you securely store your most important files, so they’re always available when you need them.

It would be great, if you could confirm that attached documents are now indeed available offline, or whether that statement is inaccurate.

I'm having a very hard time deciding wether I should migrate from a local vault in 1PW 7 to a cloud-based vault in 1PW 8 or whether I should switch password managers altogether. One big worry I have about switching to the cloud-based vault is loss of control over my data. The idea that my attached documents in 1PW (which are my most important/sensitive documents) would neither be included in my own Time Machine backups nor available without both a working internet connection and the 1PW server being available would represent my worst fears in this area come true.


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19 replies

1P_Dave
1Password Employee
May 9, 2023

@NSPredicate

Thank you for the feedback. Would an option in the 1Password for Mac app to force a download of all document items and file attachments be something that you would find helpful here? I would be happy to file an additional feature request on your behalf for such an option.

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!

Our servers are setup to be resistant to attacks of that nature and include data redundancy and disaster recovery features to guard against any data loss. That being said, I do understand your concerns and look forward to hearing if the option that I mentioned above would help you here. 🙂

-Dave

ref: dev/core/core#14463

May 9, 2023

Thank you for the swift reply, @1P_Dave. The usefulness of that feature would largely depend on what you specifically mean with "an option in the 1Password for Mac app to force a download of all document items and file attachments":

If you mean a setting in the 1PW for Mac app that, when turned on, forces documents and file attachments to be downloaded to that device (and kept there) whenever they are added or changed, then yes, that would be super helpful. This would ensure that documents and file attachments are always locally available, just like they are in previous versions of 1PW and in many other password managers.

If you just mean a button or a menu command in the app to initiate a one-time download/sync of documents and file attachments, then this feature would be of limited value, because it would not be "set it and forget it". Instead, it would require you to do a lot of micromanaging to make sure your locally saved files are always up-to-date and it would be prone to you forgetting to do so. There is a reason why 1Password does not require you to manually initiate the download of new and changed passwords, secure notes, etc., and the same reason applies to attached documents, because they are just as important as the other pieces of information in your vault. That said, a manual "sync" would, of course, be better than no sync, provided that the downloaded files are actually kept on the device und not regularly purged.

1P_Dave
1Password Employee
May 10, 2023

@NSPredicate

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I've passed along your feedback to our product team. 🙂

-Dave

ref: PB-32969143

September 5, 2023

+1 for this!

Yesterday I had to open an attachment from a Windows PC, temporarily disconnected from the internet, but the attachment did not open.

Then, I disconnected my Mac to reproduce the same situation, and the attachment did open, because it was uploaded from that machine.

So caching works. But there should be an option (on device or account basis) to instruct 1P to automatically fetch attachments as they are added/modified. As pointed out by others, this issue rarely occurs, but when it does it can create big problems.

1P_Dave
1Password Employee
September 5, 2023

Former Member

Once the 1Password app on your Windows PC downloads and opens the attachment once, that attachment will be cached and available going forward even if you're offline. The caching feature isn't limited just to the device that uploaded the attachment in the first place.

That being said, I've passed along your request to the team. 🙂

-Dave

ref: 35389825

September 5, 2023

Thank you @1P_Dave for passing the request to the team. I know that downloading one or more attachments on a device makes them available offline, but I've a lot of files and I'd like to have the ability to cache them all automatically.

1P_Dave
1Password Employee
September 5, 2023

Former Member

Thanks again for the feedback. 🙂

-Dave

rctneil
September 5, 2023

A +1 from me on this. I'd like a preference in Settings that would force all documents to have a local copy. This would be useful across platforms too. Even on iOS.

Let's say i'm travelling and i'm midflight (no wi-fi or internet at all) and needed to check a document. Right now, Id open up 1PW, find the item, tap the document, and error, need internet.

If I had this option and it was enabled, I could be 100% sure a copy of the document was on my phone. In this case Id open up 1PW, find the item, tap the document, and woohoo! the document would open.

If someone had the preference disabled, then it would cache previously viewed documents as it does right now but this preference would force download all documents and store them locally.

Surely this sounds logical?

Neil

1P_Dave
1Password Employee
September 6, 2023

@rctneil

Thanks for the great example of how an option to force all documents to be downloaded at once would be useful to you when traveling. I know that this would personally give me peace of mind as well.

While I can't make any promises, I've passed along your example and request to our product team. 🙂

-Dave

ref: 35408995