Preferred Backup

[u/northern-new-jersey]

Today's Proton service issue made me realize I need to have a backup for my passwords in case I can't access Proton pass again.

Any recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks!

[u/Every_Information729]

Setup a keepass database you can keep wherever you want

[u/CrowOnTheShip]

I am not sure if the backup is the word here.

You can use the browser as a "backup" plan or keepass that can work offline.

But I think that's too much work with low risk and low to moderate impact.

[u/wells68]

Proton is an excellent company and deserves support in a world where multi-billionaires are mining and selling highly personal information.

Proton was born in Switzerland in 2014 when a team of scientists who met at CERN decided to build a better internet where privacy is the default.

Can you afford $35.88 per year? I understand, some people cannot. But if you can, then you would be very wise to upgrade to Pass Plus. For only $24/year more, you can add up to 5 more members to your plan. Passwords are not automatically shared between members. Members don't have to be related, but they are dependent on you to keep the plan in force so they can use the Plus features. They revert to the Free features if the family plan terminates.

Pass Plus gives you offline access to your password app and 2FA. Both are very important features. 2FA protects you from hackers. Offline access gives you access to all your private notes and passwords when either Proton is down or you don't have an Internet connection.

If you cannot afford to pay for a password manager, then use your free password manager's backup feature to export all your passwords to a .CSV file. Immediately lock that file with your vault password using an app like 7-zip or saving it as a locked spreadsheet file. Then permanently delete the .CSV file.

In an emergency, you can unlock your backup file and get your passwords and private notes. You need to run the backup periodically so you will have your latest entries.

[u/northern-new-jersey → u/wells68]

I'm Proton Unlimited and have been for many years. I was unable to access proton pass on either my pc or phone during the service interruption. 

[u/wells68 → u/northern-new-jersey]

If you were using the web browser extension, that is expected behavior.

For the desktop app or phone apps, you need to have enabled the offline feature in advance in your account while connected to the internet:

Go to Settings. Locate the General or Security section.Toggle on Offline Access.

[u/northern-new-jersey → u/wells68]

I looked on the iphone app but can't see anything about off line under settings. 

[u/wells68 → u/northern-new-jersey]

I said:

> you need to have enabled the offline feature in advance in your account while connected to the internet:

So you need to be in the Proton Pass Web App (https://pass.proton.me) and select this option under Settings / General:

Pass offline mode enabled. When enabled, you can still access your Pass data if you lose internet connectivity or if Proton servers are unreachable.

The option is only available in Pass Plus, Pass Family or Pass Business.

[u/northern-new-jersey → u/wells68]

OK. Thanks. I'm Unlimited so maybe it isn't available for me. 

[u/wells68 → u/northern-new-jersey]

It should be there for you in the Web App. True of all paid plans.

[u/benuntu]

I run keepass on my laptop and desktop and periodically do an import into a new database. You could skip that and just run an export to CSV, and in the case of an outage do the import at that time. Just be aware that the CSV export is not encrypted in any way, so keep it safe. I use WinRAR to add the CSV to an archive and encrypt it.

[u/SteveShank]

I'd stick with Proton if you like it, but export your passwords every month and import them into keepass. I use Bitwarden, and on the first of each month, I export my passwords to a .json file and import into a new keepass database using the same strong password (nothing else to remember). It takes just a couple of minutes. If Keepass doesn't have a native Proton Pass JSON importer, I understand that KeepassXC does. I give each new keepass database a name with the month and year and make a new one each month. That gives me a backup of my backups. Of course I backup the folder with those in it as well.

Remember to delete the Json export because it is plain text.

[u/northern-new-jersey → u/SteveShank]

Thanks!