I think I’m going to go crazy. I paid for the a Premium individual subscription in order to have the ability to attach files. So far I strongly dislike this feature.
After uploading several files it SEEMS LIKE the files actually aren’t attached… rather they are simply linked to a file stored on my computer. In other words the files themselves don’t take up space on BitWarden.
In Airtable I can see a thumbnail of what is attached in each record. I can then delete if off my computer.
Very frustrated. I didn’t know how it was going to work. Now I’ve probably wasted 8-10 hours.
Can someone confirm if the file is stored in BitWarden or simply linked to a file on my computer?
No, you are mistaken. Attached files are stored as encrypted blobs on the Bitwarden server. Normally, this would be Bitwarden’s cloud servers, but you are self-hosted, so the files would be on your own server.
The vault cache on your device contains metadata about the uploaded files, including a URL for where the file is located on the server.
After uploading the files, I’m attempting to view them and the folder on my computer pops up. I want to store them on BitWarden as standalone files.
Is this possible? How? I don’t understand words like metadata.
When you say “on BitWarden” what do you mean? They are stored as standalone files (encrypted) on the computer that is running your instance of Bitwarden Server.
P.S. “Metadata” means data about data. For example, the name, size, and location of the attached file.
We have to be specific about which computer we are talking about. You are running a self-hosted instance of Bitwarden (well, presumably this is what you’re doing, since you selected the self-hosting tag for this post topic), so you have one computer that is running an instance of Bitwarden Server — let’s call this computer the “server” computer. In addition, you have (presumably) downloaded and installed at least one Bitwarden client app on a different computer — we’ll call this the “client” computer (to distinguish it from the “server” computer).
Now, to answer your questions:
The file attachments are uploaded to (and thus, a copy of each file is stored on) the “server” computer. The Bitwarden vault on your “client” computer stores a link to the attachment location on the “server” computer.
Therefore, if you attach a file from the “client” computer, then you can delete the file from the “client” computer after the upload has been successfully completed. However, if you start deleting files on your “server” computer, then you may lose the data!
I think that what you are confused about is the fact that with few exceptions, you cannot open (i.e., view the contents of) your file attachments using the Bitwarden client apps. Therefore, when you try to view an attached file using a Bitwarden client app, the app will first download the file from the “server” computer to the “client” computer (e.g., to the “Donwloads” folder), and then allow you to open/view the file on the “client” computer. Thus, it may appear to you as if the file never left your computer (when it actually made a round-trip).
OK, I’ve changed the tag on your post topic to cloud-default (which means that you are using Bitwarden in the “default” way — your vault is hosted on Bitwarden’s cloud servers, and not on your own self-hosted server instance).
In this case, everything that I said about the “‘client’ computer” applies to your desktop computer:
The file attachments are uploaded to (and thus, a copy of each file is stored on) the “server” computerBitwarden’s “cloud”. The Bitwarden vault on your “client”desktop computer stores a link to the attachment location on the “server” computerin the cloud.
Therefore, if you attach a file from the “client”desktop computer, then you can delete the file from the “client”desktop computer after the upload has been successfully completed. However, if you start deleting files on your “server” computer, then you may lose the data!
I think that what you are confused about is the fact that with few exceptions, you cannot open (i.e., view the contents of) your file attachments using the Bitwarden client apps. Therefore, when you try to view an attached file using a Bitwarden client app, the app will first download the file from the “server” computercloudto the “client”desktop computer (e.g., to the “Donwloads” folder), and then allow you to open/view the file on the “client”desktop computer. Thus, it may appear to you as if the file never left your computer (when it actually made a round-trip).
Hi grb. Can i ask you a question about the attachment feature between plans?
I want to buy the Personal Premium Upgrade ($10/year) and add an attachment file to one of my passwords. But first i want to know what happen if after that i share that password with my Free Plan Organization (2 users). Am I going to be able to see it or edit it? Or Do I have to buy a Premium Organization Plan too for that?
Thanks in advance!!
Items stored in the free organization vaults cannot contain any file attachments. If you want to share credentials that contain file attachments, you would need a Family Plan. The plan allows for up to 6 users (all of whom would have Premium benefits) and costs $40/year.
If you don’t need to for the attached file to be shared with the other user, then I would suggest creating one item for the file attachment (which is stored only in your personal vault), and a separate item for the shared login credentials (which is stored in the shared collection, in the organization vault).
One thing that may be confusing is the fact that you cannot share credentials that are stored in your personal vault. You have to move the credential into the organization vault to share it (or create the vault item directly within the organization vault to begin with).