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Hi @dfz1password, thank you for sharing your perspective. I have passed your request on to our development team, and I hope my reply below will be a helpful one.

First, we recognize that sharing data (or copying items of 1Password in some format) is something people may need to do. To that end, we've been working to make sharing more flexible in a number of ways. We recently launched PSST!, which makes electronically sharing items with anyone - especially if they don't have a 1Password account - much easier than in any previous version of 1Password.

More on that here.

Sometimes people need a way to get to stuff without having to log into cloud accounts or use Emergency Kits.

That's true. When we're assisting folks with questions about data access (example: "I need my spouse to be able to get into my account in the event that I'm critically injured"), we typically recommend making a copy of the Emergency Kit as a first option, because this approach provides an extra security benefit: it means that there's a way for your designated person to get access to your account, without leaving an unencrypted copy of your data on a disk (or on paper) in the meantime, where it might be obtained by an adversary. Your data stays locked in 1Password, secured by the security engineering we've taken pains to put in place. With an Emergency Kit, the designated person also isn't dependent on recovering a specific device - they can sign into 1Password.com from anywhere. So all other considerations being equal, we go to this first.

I need to print a whole archive to put in a safe deposit box where my executor can get to it.

There is a way to do this: you can export to a .CSV file, and print that as you would any normal text file. That is currently a part of 1Password 8.

Sometimes I need to turn over a subset of entries that I use for one of my clients when terminating a service contract, to give them all their bank access, etc. logins. They may not have 1Password, or even use a Password vault.

I can see your point here, and was happy to file a feature request for you. 👍

Many people still like to use paper for easy reference. I know you think it's not as safe as using the cloud, but you should leave that decision to the customer. Put a popup advisory warning in the dialog box when printing if that will make you feel better.

This is essentially what the current export functionality does, but again we consider unencrypted export a less-desireable option than others - although we do provide it.

To speak broadly for a moment, it's also not always as simple as "put up a warning dialogue." 1Password's user base ranges from folks who are using a computer for the first time to those who have many years working in information security, who possess incredible technical depth and skill. Others work in fields like journalism where a security slip-up can have serious repercussions.

When we put a decision in a user's path, we can't assume a level of security-related knowledge - and actually it's much safer for us not to assume that folks are well-versed in, say, principles of operational security. And we likewise can't assume that the decision about how to handle that data won't matter that much. It's part of our responsibility, and part of what people entrust us with, to provide options wherever we can that are secure by default. In cases where it is beneficial to provide an option that carries some risk, we do signpost it as you've suggested. I just want to articulate the obligation that we feel (and we do feel it, and we should feel it) to the end-user, and that we consider the security implications carefully.

With that said, we also want to help you do the things you need to do without 1Password getting in your way. I appreciate your feedback here, and we'll continue to improve the flexibility of how you can share your items as best we can.