✅ Vault Backup

Feature Requests Password Manager
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@grb claims a certain incantation can back up the vault

  1. without having to log in separately on the web interface or CLI
  2. as a fully reliable backup, safe against remote logout etc, including the 30-day inactivity timeout.
  3. in native BitWarden format
  4. encrypted, natch.

The standard AEK method is not a reliable backup, as discussed in the HOWTO. Including if BitWarden Inc died suddenly.

Caveat: The grb instructions are written for Bitwarden Portable, which is only available for Windows.

I think that if Bitwarden Portable is your primary install, the incantation-style backup does not require entering an additional encryption password. This would reduce friction. So that’s what I want, and apparently the code is basically there.

On the other hand, it would be simpler to document if Desktop could match the existing feature in BitWarden Web and CLI, which currently support export to JSON using an arbitrary encryption password. So that’s what I think is realistic.

Let’s just have vault backups from the Desktop app. A new option in export (and import), which matches all the advantages listed above.

@grb you said you were interested to hear what my circumstances were. The major one is that I need to make backups. In some way that is sustainable, for me. Also I do not use Windows. I hope this is clear :-).

It sounds like I could jerry-rig something. However, I need some official BitWarden documentation that says my backup and restore procedure is OK now, in the future, and in a range of possible scenarios. The cleanest solution is simply for Bitwarden Desktop to implement vault backups, consistent with Web and CLI.

If BitWarden would like to write up and endorse specific ways of messing with its internal files including on Linux, that might be able to meet my needs. But I think that is a much worse way to improve the product.

This feature request avoids assuming the user has system backups, e.g backups of \AppData\. Those are very nice but harder to restore, also a lot of people have backups like OneDrive cloud storage or Microsoft FileHistory which do not automatically include \AppData\.

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white_check_mark Allow password protected exports from all apps and extensions

^ Thanks for filling that gap. My original request has now been fulfilled.

(Though, I would also like documented support for being backed up automatically. I.e. 1) documentation of which folder I need to check is included in my backups, and 2) documentation of how to restore in the case where my bitwarden account has been lost, destroyed, or taken over by an attacker who is familiar with the remote-logout feature).

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Closing this thread as implemented.

If you have additional proposals, feel free to start a new Feature Request thread (after searching for existing Feature Requests).

The password-protected export is like any other export file, so to restore it, all you have to do is to use Bitwarden’s import function.