I unfortunately ran into a flaw of export vault on web vault. I shared all my items to an organization but then wanted to unshare them. There is no unshare option so I went to my vault and exported to .json then purged my organization. The flaw is that the export vault .json file was empty except for the metadata for folders (reminder i exported my vault from my vault page, and purged my organization from my organization page). Therefore my vault lost!!
Yes I should have checked the .json file to be sure, but I was operating under what I thought was careful measures. I luckily had a backup from a week ago, but I lost 10+ passwords!
I tested this by doing it again in the same process of steps laid out above. .json file was empty again.
Feature requests: 1) Unshare Option and 2) to be able to export vault items from your vault page even if they are shared to an organization, or 3) at least have better warning of exporting shared items or better confirmation of number of items exported. (currently the only communication about shared items I could find was âthey will be owned by the organizationâ, but its frustrating that they still appear in my vault giving the impression that the export vault tool will still work within âmy vaultâ)
I too noticed shared entries arenât exported. Apparently this bug isnât fixed yet. I filed a support request.
When you export your vault you expect all visible entries to be exported, including your shared entries.
Bitwarden should add a warning that shared entries can only be exported from within the shared organizationâs vault.
I noticed this issue because I tried another password manager and I was missing some entries. Luckily I had not deleted anything yet.
I too noticed shared entries are not exported.
Fortunately I saw this when I tried to use the backup to get a shared item.
I am glad I did not have to rely on this backup.
Hopefully some option will be forthcoming to allow exporting shared items.
I was able export shared items by going to the organization and using the export tool available there.
This exports only items in the organization. In my case these are all of the shared items I was missing.
Unfortunately, I now have two exported files.
apologies for resurrecting such as old topic, but Iâve just tried to export my vault and (in 2024) Iâm still experiencing this exact same issue.
I have personal passwords in the root âMy Vaultâ and work passwords shared to a âWorkâ organisation, I can export personal passwords, cards, and notes with no issue, but trying to export my âWorkâ vault contents leaves me with a JSON file with items: [].
trying to export vault through the Chrome extension doesnât even give the option of selection my âWorkâ org for export.
so, whatâs going on here Bitwarden?
edit: this gets even more interesting when I try export my vault using the Android mobile app⌠where exports from the web portal include keys like passwordHistory, revisionDate, creationDate, etc., which are not included in the mobile export. meanwhile, the mobile export has keys that are not included in the web portal exportâŚ
edit 2: for anybody else running into this issue, the CLI based export process does work for organization vaults.
Exporting from the password manager will only include individual vault items or collections you have canManage permissions for when an organization has been selected. More information about individual vault exports can be found here.
For a full backup of an organizational vault, youâll need to go into the Admin Console and export from there.
The desktop or browser extension have been limited to exporting individual vaults. With the next version (2024.6) it will have the same capabilities as the Web Vault (password-protected exports and export of managed collections). I announce this here
The current mobile apps do currently not include the fields you mentioned. This is something we are aware of and have planned to have fixed with the rollout of the new native mobile apps.
Logging into the CLI with admin privileges and exporting an organizational vault is the same procedure as logging into the Admin Console and exporting.
I hope I was able to shed some light on the issues youâve mentioned.
The process of exporting organization vault is same from Vault or from Admin Console. The difference at least for me is that when exporting from Vault, the file is basically empty. There is no error message or anything. I did the export wrong for couple of months, and only noticed my mistake because the file size of exported file was 1kb.
sorry for the delayed response, been a little busy with other things this past week⌠also thanks for the info, but even after looking through the docs you link to, this has actually raised more questions than it has answered.
from my experience as a UI/UX engineer, if something does not do what the UI implies that it does, then it should not be there⌠leaving UI paths in place that do not work only serves to complicate matters for both the end user and the developers tasked with maintaining it.
so if the system cannot export âorganisation vaultsâ from the general âExport vaultâ page as accessed from the main sidebar menu, then just remove that option from the dropdown menu. I can promise you that the vast majority of users would have only read that note at the top of the page after trying and failing to export the contents contained in an âorganisation vaultâ⌠interactive elements (in this case the drop down menu) will always grab user attention first. and in that drop down, we can select an org vault, select an export format, and proceed with no error or warning whatsoever, implying that it should âjust workâ.
not throwing stones at anyone here, just stating a pretty well known fact in the UI/UX industry.
That would be harmful to those that do not use organizations. The better/simpler/clearer UI/UX change would be to rename the item âExport âMy Vaultââ to better describe what the option actually does. Or in this case, not worry about it because an update to the feature has already been announced:
not sure if you misunderstood me, or if Iâm misunderstanding you⌠I was proposing the removal of âorganisation vaultsâ from the dropdown for selecting which vault to export, specifically in the view for exporting vaults. how exactly is that harmful to people who donât use organisations? for them, nothing would change.
in the four and a half years Iâve been using Bitwarden, Iâve never found the need to come ask for any help on these forums⌠so, pray tell, how are non-regular visitors of this forum supposed to know about that?
Based on reading the exchange, Iâm fairly sure itâs the former.
Regardless, the existing export function from the Password Manager dashboard does need to include the option to export Organization vault data, because it is possible for non-administrators to have permissions to manage a subset of collections, and such permissions must include the ability to export the managed collections. These users would need the ability to export Organization vault data from the main Password Manager dashboard, because they do not have access to the Administrator dashboard.
Thus, what is needed is better labeling of that option, or perhaps a pop-up alert that clearly indicates what has been exported and what has not been exported (especially of the Org export is empty).
Another possibility would be to hide the Org export option in the Password Manager dashboard, if the user is an Org admin.
I must be misunderstanding you because when I select âexport vaultâ from the file menu in the desktop app, it goes immediately to âexporting individual vaultâ, with no option to do an organizational vault. Here is what I see⌠my guess is you are talking about something else and I missed a flag.
I fear that I may be at risk of derailing this thread, so please do let me know if I should rather start a new one to get the clarification Iâm looking for.
this is intriguing, because I am currently and always have been the only user in my Bitwarden account. I cannot find anywhere (through the web portal) to check and/or set any permissions like what youâve described here. I created a second vault in my account, and therefore I believe I should have full access to it.
ah, ok⌠I thought this thread was to do with the web portal, as per the opening line of the first post:
anyways, Iâm off to go RTFM again⌠maybe Iâm just using the wrong tools within the Bitwarden system to separate personal and work passwords.
See this Help Center section for how to assign collection permissions to an individual user or to a group. If you have âCan Manageâ permissions for a collection, then you should be able to export that collection from the Password Manager dashboard (without switching to the Administrator dashboard).
