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Former Member's avatar
Former Member
4 years ago

Secret Key - where do I get it?

I somehow missed the bus on when and where the Secret Key thing started. In an effort to help my mother-in-law get her 1Password working I was attempting to log into my account and ran into the Secret Key thing, that I'd never heard of previously. Obviously, I can't log in.

1Password has been part of my life since V3. It's on three of my devices (desktop, laptop & iPhone). For the last few years it hasn't synced and I find dealing with fixing it more annoying than shooting passwords back and forth between devices. I also don't like the subscription model, which I have a feeling is why I don't have a Secret Key.

My attempts led me to help which is just a cyclical, unhelpful mess. Along with that, I also found another term that I'd never heard of.... Emergency Kit. Ugh!

In any case, any thoughts as to what I need to do to get things working again.....? It would be nice to figure mine out as well as help my mother-in-law fix hers given that it's so incredibly frustrating these days.

Thanks....

FYI - sorry for the tone... I'm just hugely frustrated....

1Password Version: 7.9.1
Extension Version: 4.7.5.90
OS Version: 12.0.1

browser extension

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  • Former Member's avatar
    Former Member
    4 years ago

    @wunnspeed:

    Thank you for the feedback. The company decided to focus on Memberships as the future of 1Password as it provides the best experience overall, so I hope you will consider giving that a try at least, and see how that works for you :+1:

  • Former Member's avatar
    Former Member
    4 years ago

    Hi Jack.... thanks for responding.

    Essentially, as I'd kind of suspected, those of us that just want to buy the app and not be part of a membership scheme are being pushed aside. Sad, as I really like 1Password and have even helped Beta a version at one point. O.K., good to know, I guess.

  • Jack_P_1P's avatar
    Jack_P_1P
    Icon for 1Password Team rank1Password Team
    4 years ago

    Hey @wunnspeed:

    Thanks for being a fan of 1Password for so long, and I hope I can clarify some of the confusion around this. I can provide the more broad overview answer, since it looks like you've reached out via email as well. :smile:

    Secret Keys are for 1Password accounts, not a standalone vault synced via Dropbox or iCloud. When a 1Password account is first created, you receive a Secret Key, generated solely on your device, that we (as in 1Password's servers) never see or receive. That Secret Key acts as additional encryption material to help protect your data while it's on our servers. It isn't a backup code for recovering your 1Password account. If you lose access to all of your devices with 1Password, and don't have a copy of your Secret Key, we cannot recover it for you. For more on how your Secret Key protects your data, see here: About your Secret Key

    An Emergency Kit is a PDF document that contains your account details, and has a place to write in your account password. If you fill out your Emergency Kit and store it safely, it will allow you to access your 1Password account if you can’t sign in. For more details on the Emergency Kit, see here: Get to know your Emergency Kit

    Just as an additional point of discussion, we're focusing on 1Password memberships as we move forward, and 1Password 8 will only support 1Password memberships. For more specifics on this, here's a post by our founder Dave Teare.

    Let me know if you have any further questions!

    Jack

    ref: KYU-98561-175