1Password and Parallels Desktop for Mac

Everyone needs passwords—dozens and dozens of them—and most people think they’re a real hassle to remember and use. So you write them on sticky notes (don’t laugh, we’ve all done this, me included) and you re-use the same password for different accounts (I’m guilty of this, too). These are both manual password management approaches, but neither are good practices. The Parallels Desktop® for Mac user has even more of a password problem—in addition to passwords on the Mac®, you have passwords on Windows, too. What’s a person to do?

There are automated password management systems, and one of the most popular is 1Password. 1Password works on Mac, Windows PCs, and iOS devices. In this blog post, I’ll show you how I use 1Password with Parallels Desktop virtual machines (VMs).

Note: 1Password is also currently part of the Parallels Desktop bundle so you can get it easily as part of this deal.

There are a number of different ways to use 1Password, but I’ll focus on the way that seems to work best with Parallels Desktop: 1Password for Families syncing to an account on the AgileBits server.

1Password Setup

After I signed up for a 1Password account, I downloaded and installed the 1Password app for Mac on my MacBook Pro® and the 1Password app for Windows in my Windows 10 VM. I linked both apps to my 1Password account. Figure 1 shows them in use.

Figure 1_Main 1Password windows on Mac and Windows

1Password Use

You need to get your logins and passwords into 1Password. An efficient way to do this is to disable autofill for usernames and passwords in your browser (if you have this enabled) and then just access these sites and enter passwords normally. 1Password will notice this and offer to store the passwords in your “vault.” Soon, you’ll have stored lots of passwords in 1Password. You can do this in both Mac and Windows—because you used the same 1Password account and are syncing your vault, that login and password will be available in both platforms. Video 1 shows logging in to Amazon.com on both Mac and Windows, with the single password stored in my synched vault.

I have now moved over to 1Password on all my Mac devices and Windows VMs. I hope you’re able to make your password management more secure and less of a hassle with a tool like 1Password. Let us know in the comments, on Twitter or Facebook how this has worked for you.

Feel free to download a free trial of Parallels Desktop for Mac to use 1Password on the Mac and Windows side.