Hi folks, sure, I can explain a bit about this. Generally, when we get questions about the "online vs offline" model of password management, there are a couple major concerns, including accessibility (can you get your data when you need it, even if something happens to us?) and data integrity ("what if someone breaks into our servers and tries to delete everything?"). I'll do my best to address those here.
Where Is Your Data? 🕵️
Here's a quick example to explain how our model works. Let's take the scenario of "what happens the first time you sign into 1Password on a new device?".
When you set up 1Password for the first time on a new device, the program creates an encrypted file on that device. It's called the local database, and that's where your items are stored. This local database is synced to a reference copy on our secure servers, which is how your items stay updated and synced across devices. So far so good. 👍
That means that each of your devices already contains a local version of your 1Password database. This provides a source of redundancy - for example, let's say that you're using 1Password on a desktop, laptop, and mobile phone. In that case, you have four copies of your database available: one on each device, and one at 1Password.com.
These local databases, present on each device, are also part of how we deal with the question of "what if there's some kind of service interruption?". When you unlock your 1Password app, you're unlocking the local database on your device, which then syncs to our server, if it can, once it's open. That's how your items get updated across devices.
That basic sync function, which is built into the 1Password app and which is triggered regularly as part of the app's normal operations, is a form of backup. This is handled automatically by the 1Password.com service. I should note that data handling within our servers is also redundant and distributed as well - so there's additional resilience there. If you're curious, you can also check out our server uptime here (it's currently sitting at 100% over the last 90 days).
But the local database itself is all you need to access your existing data at any given time. That means you never need to have access to our servers, or even the internet in general, to get access to your items. You could be on a boat in the middle of the ocean, open your app, and see your data there. All you need is 1) to have signed into the app on this device before, 2) to know your Account Password.
Additional Options
While we feel this already puts 1Password customers in a very strong position - not needing us to unlock or access data, preserving your privacy and security by keeping the unlock process entirely local to your device, and so on - there is more that we're doing, and can do.
First, while we don't recommend it as a go-to method, it is possible to export your data from 1Password 8. We're also looking at ways we might further build out this functionality to be more secure.
And if you really really need to backup your local 1Password data in a way that's not handled by our servers, you can always create a full-disk image of your device, and store it somewhere safe and secure. We generally suggest that folks not make their own backups of the local databases, though, because our servers are already syncing your databases across devices, and we don't want you to end up with conflicting copies.
And as always, there's a range of proposals we're evaluating and testing to make the 1Password model more secure, redundant, and resilient for you, and we'll share details on those things if and when they make it to a Beta release for you to try.
I hope this proves helpful - let me know what you think! 😃
