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1Password 3

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# Resolving Sync Conflicts

If ever you make a change on more than one computer or device that conflicts with another change, Dropbox will create a “conflicted copy” of the file automatically.

Because Dropbox syncs so quickly, sync conflicts are not usually an issue because a change from one computer is almost instantaneously reflected on all your other computers and devices. Thus, the most common reason for conflicts to appear is if you are making changes while offline.

When you are offline, Dropbox does not have a chance to work its magic and sync the changes across all your computers and devices. So if you change the same file in two different locations and then reconnect both of them to the Internet, Dropbox will preserve the changes you made in both locations by creating a duplicate of the file with the words “conflicted copy” in the file name. Also included in the file name will be the name of the computer or device which made the changes producing the conflict as well as the date of the conflict.

A 1Password data file is what is known in Mac OS X as a “bundle” which is a fancy way of making a collection of files appear to the system as a single file. This facilitates better syncing — and, believe it or not, fewer conflicts — because each item in 1Password is actually stored as a separate file inside the bundle. If you just edit one item, only that file is synced rather than the entire data file.

If you are interested, you can see all the “conflicted copy” files by ctrl-clicking on your 1Password.agilekeychain data file in Finder and selecting “Show Package Contents” from the shortcut menu. Click the “data” folder and then the “default” folder inside that. These are the all the files that each represent an item in 1Password. Now, you could just delete all the files with “conflicted copy” in their name, but we have a solution built into 1Password that actually allows you to easily choose which data is the right data: the Sync Conflict Resolver. Simply select ”Find and Resolve Sync Conflicts” from the Help > Tools menu in 1Password.

To resolve all conflicts in favor of the data stored on your Mac, click the action button in the bottom left corner and select ”Choose All from [Your Computer]” from the menu and then click the ”Resolve Conflicts” button. Likewise, to resolve all conflicts in favor of the data which Dropbox obtained from another computer or device with which you were syncing, select ”Choose All from Dropbox” before clicking the ”Resolve Conflicts” button.

Otherwise, you will need to resolve each item individually by checking the “Choose This Copy” box for each item.

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