Security and privacy

How to keep your 1Password account secure

Learn how to use 1Password in a way that will protect your information and make sure that you can always access your account.

Your 1Password account is already protected by a suite of features designed to make it very hard for anyone to access your information. Do your part to fortify those protections by following these steps.

Protect your 1Password account password

Your 1Password account’s first line of defense is a good account password. It’s used to encrypt your data, secure your account, and make sure no one but you is able to see the information you’ve entrusted to 1Password.

  • Choose a strong account password. 1Password can suggest a good account password for you when you create your 1Password account. If you choose to create your own, pick something that’s hard to guess but easy to remember. Learn how to choose a good account password.

  • Use your account password only for 1Password. If you use your account password on another website that experiences a security breach, an attacker may attempt to use it to get into your 1Password account. Make sure your account password is not used anywhere else.

  • Keep your account password private. No one else should know your account password. 1Password Support will never ask for your password, and if you ever lose access to your 1Password account, a family organizer or team administrator can help restore your access without ever knowing your password.

Prepare your Emergency Kit

An Emergency Kit containing all the information you need to access your 1Password account is automatically created when you sign up. It’s important that you don’t share your Emergency Kit with anyone.

  • Get your Emergency Kit off your computer. Put it on a USB flash drive or print a copy. The Emergency Kit protects you in situations where you can’t sign in, so it is important that you have access to it if something ever happens to your computer.

  • Fill in your account password. This will give you a backup in case you forget your account password at any point. This is especially useful if you don’t have anyone else to help recover your account, like another family organizer or team administrator.

  • Keep your Emergency Kit somewhere safe. Store a copy with your passport, birth certificate, and other important documents. Save a copy to your personal cloud storage. Give a copy to someone you trust, like your spouse or someone in your will.

Let 1Password do its job

If you have a 1Password account, odds are that you’ve already made 1Password an important part of your everyday life. And if you’re new to the service, you’ll want to get in the habit of trusting 1Password to handle important data for you.

  • Use vaults to store important data. It’s better to trust 1Password with your passwords, credit cards, or sensitive documents than it is to have them spread out across multiple places. 1Password was built with the security of that information in mind – a text document saved to your computer’s desktop was not.

  • Use the password generator whenever you sign up for new accounts. Use the password generator whenever you sign up for new accounts. If you’ve been creating your own passwords, you probably have a system to make them easy to remember: “Fido1”, “Fido2”, and so on. Use the password generator for more secure passwords. You can also use it to change your existing passwords and make them stronger.

  • Use 1Password to share information with your family or team. It isn’t safe to send passwords or other sensitive information over text messages or email. Storing that information in a 1Password vault you share with your family members or teammates, on the other hand, offers a secure way to keep everyone in sync.

  • Use 1Password to share information with people outside your family or team. 1Password can also be used to share information with guests, who are only able to view the vault to which they are invited. This allows you to safely share information with these people without requiring you to give them full access to all your 1Password data.

  • Ask for help with account recovery. Family organizers and team administrators can help you regain access to your 1Password account if you forget your account password or lose your Secret Key. Designating someone you trust as a family organizer or team administrator is the best way to make sure you’ll always have access to your 1Password account.

  • Use 1Password on multiple devices. One of the benefits of having a 1Password account is the ability to access your data from anywhere. Install the 1Password app on all your devices to make sure that you always have access to your data, even if something goes wrong with one of them.

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