Downloading and Using The 1Password Desktop App
This blog post focuses on the 1Password desktop program. This blog post series walks you through how to download, install, and use 1Password, including the desktop program, and browser extensions, depending on what you want to use.
Given the essential nature of password managers, I don’t feel right paywalling this blog post series, as I feel it’s information everyone should have access to.
I have used the browser extensions for 1Password, and before that LastPass, but I find them somewhat unreliable, and each browser needs to be “reset” occasionally, which means re-installing any extensions. I prefer the desktop program. To each their own, though.
This part of the guide assumes you already have a 1Password account. You will need to login to your 1Password account to download the desktop program. Go to 1Password.com to do this. If you are installing the desktop app on another device, you will also need your “secret key”, which you should have downloaded when you initially setup your account.
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Once logged in, click your name at the top right, and single left-click “Get the Apps”.
In the list of apps, single-left click the one for your operating system to download it. In this case, Windows 10.
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Depending on your browser settings, you may see this window, which gives you the option of where to download the file to, and what to name the file. Then click on “save”.
Since you don’t need to be signed into your account on the 1Password website itself past this point, I recommend signing out. Go back to your main account page, click your name near the top right, and click “Sign Out”.
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Click Image To View Larger Version
Click the yellow folder icon near your Start Menu, then navigate to the “Downloads” folder, or the location you downloaded the file to. Double left-click to start the installation.
Once installed, you will need to login to your 1Password account via the app and possibly enter your Two-Factor Authentication one-time code, if you set that up (and you definitely should).
Once desktop app is good to go, you can search your vault for any account you may have added, perhaps your imported accounts from LastPass.
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When you choose an account, the details will appear on the right. Simply left-click the username to copy it temporarily (15 seconds), so you can paste it into the username field on the particular website. Same process for the password.
Here’s a close-up view of what one of my accounts looks like in the 1Password deskto app. You would copy the information from each of these two fields, username and password.
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Click Image To View Larger Version
Here’s an example of a login page. First I copied the username from 1Password, then did the same for the password. The information was not auto-filled.
Thank you so much for your interest in this blog post series on 1Password. I really appreciate it!
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