First, thank you for building such a robust and secure password manager. Bitwarden continues to impress with its transparency and feature set.
One important feature that would significantly improve usability is full offline support. Currently, when the app is used without internet connectivity, functionality is limited to read-only mode. This creates challenges in restricted or offline environments, where creating, editing, or deleting vault items becomes impossible.
Enabling a true offline mode with full vault editing capabilities would bring Bitwarden in line with other leading password managers and greatly enhance usability in low- or no-connectivity scenarios.
Many users - including myself - would benefit greatly from the ability to manage vault items offline. Once connectivity is restored, the app could automatically sync any changes with the Bitwarden servers, ensuring consistency without compromising security.
I read this whole thread, but unfortunately I haven’t found an answer for my particular use-case yet. So I hope that you might have some ideas.
I’m running the Bitwarden unified self-hosted deployment on my Raspberry Pi 4 at home which works like a charm. I’ve been travelling for three months now and although I had some doubts at the beginning, I never got logged out within Bitwarden’s Android app, i.e. I could use it without any issues
What I’ve been missing, however, is the possibility to create a new vault entry while being offline during my vacation. Instead, I had to use a temporary KeePass file and do all the stuff manually after coming back home
I don’t have any sophisticated needs, I’m more on the very basic end of Create a very new vault entry or edit an existing one, and sync it when being online again back home. In my case, there won’t be any sync conflicts (since nobody else is at home and can change the online vault entry meanwhile ), etc. A simple “last one wins” approach would be totally sufficient.
As a software developer I’m fully aware that the whole topic of replication and synchronization is a beast on it’s own when looking at it with a holistic approach. So you probably have a lot of things to take into account.
Nonetheless, I’d like know what you’d suggest in this case. The very important thing for me is that everything happens offline, i.e. I neither want to temporarily move my passwords into the cloud nor I want to expose my Raspberry Pi (hosting Bitwarden at home) to the internet.
There are valid use-cases for the proposed functionality, and if you (or anybody else) is confused about the rationale for this feature request, you can read through the thread to find various examples that have been provided.
+1 vote for this functionality!
Offline editing is a must have - there are many situations where network access to the outside world is not possible.
Thank you!
As I really would like to see this feature come to live I implemented the server side and submitted a PR to the Bitwarden team. Currently waiting for a reply what the team thinks of my approach. Really would like to bring offline editing to everyone here
I’d also like Bitwarden to allow creating and editing vault items while offline, especially in the Browser Extension and Android app. Changes could be stored locally in encrypted form and automatically synchronized when a connection becomes available.
I understand that certain actions would still require an internet connection and that users shouldn’t expect everything to work offline (for example, logging out and back in, account-related operations, or other server-dependent actions). However, being able to save and update vault items offline would make Bitwarden much more useful in situations with limited or no internet access.
I’m also curious whether there are specific technical or security challenges that have prevented this feature from being implemented so far.
The only problem I can see is synchronizing — how to handle multiple people updating/creating an item. The user ID’s would — by definition — be identical with possible password differences, Resolution would have to be that the first to reconnect, “wins” unless the item was updated online after the offline update.
If multiple creations were present with different ID’s, then create each entry with the ID appended to the name?
I think conflicts can be handled without forcing users to resolve them immediately.
When syncing, if Bitwarden detects that the same item was changed both offline and online, it could keep both versions instead of choosing a winner. The online version would remain in the vault, and the offline version would be saved as a conflict copy.
These conflicts could be listed in a separate “Conflicts” section, allowing users to review and resolve them later when convenient.
This would prevent data loss, avoid interrupting the sync process, and remove the need for a “first reconnect wins” approach.
), etc. A simple “last one wins” approach would be totally sufficient.
