How To Export Your Bitwarden Vault For Safekeeping – Maintaining a backup of your vault plays a critical role in keeping your secrets and passwords safe, but it also comes with the responsibility of managing a file full of highly sensitive information. This guide walks through a method to create an encrypted backup of your vault on a USB flash drive. A backup will be invaluable if you find yourself unable to log into your account or in some other unforeseen situation.
Users can download their safes to use as a backup or transfer their passwords to another safe. This downloaded vault copy contains all usernames, passwords, URIs and other details in a human-readable format.
How To Export Your Bitwarden Vault For Safekeeping
Once the backup of the vault is downloaded, it can be stored, moved, copied and deleted, but remember; This file must be protected because it contains plaintext copies of all usernames and passwords in the vault. This guide aims to provide a simple and effective way to securely manage this data so that it can be accessed in emergencies, but remains safe should it fall into the wrong hands.
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To get started, you need to download your case; You can do this by using the guide here: Help: Export Your Data
Since this vault copy is designed to be used as a backup to restore the vault in case the vault crashes, it is best to choose the .json export format. When you import a .json vault file, you are presented with a vault that is identical to the original vault when it was exported.
At the end of the export, a .json file will be downloaded to your computer. It is very important not to forget this file later! Anyone with access to your computer can open the file and read the entire vault contents, including all credentials and secrets inside.
Vault exports do not include file attachments, trash items, or Submissions. You will need to export them manually.
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The encrypted .json option is a great tool for creating backups! However, the files are not human-readable and offer less flexibility (but more security) than exporting an unencrypted file and modifying it.
Files exported from Encrypted Export can only be exported to your own account (Account backup) or any other account (Password protected). Even if you provide the correct password, they cannot be used by third-party encryption tools.
The safest way to store a backup is to ensure that the sensitive file is stored on some type of encrypted media, such as a USB flash drive.
A useful technique is to create an encrypted volume on an unencrypted USB drive (instead of encrypting the entire drive) to store your vault backup. This ensures that the USB stick is detected normally by computers and allows unencrypted files and folders to be stored alongside encrypted files.
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The unencrypted space can then be used to store instructions such as where to find the decryption password and copies of decryption tools for macOS and Windows. The benefit is that a user who plugs the drive into their machine five years later will immediately understand the contents and how to use them, long after they have forgotten the purpose of the backup. An unauthorized user will understand the content, but will not be able to access it because they will not have the necessary credentials.
Most USB flash drives come pre-formatted and ready for your computer to use. If you have not changed the advanced file settings or want to change them, the following section provides a description and instructions on how to do so.
All storage designed to be read by computers must use one of many file systems. Popular file systems include FAT, exFAT, APFS, ext4 and NTFS. The file system on a device gives the computer instructions on what, where, and how to access files located on the device. Different operating systems prefer different file systems; The Windows PC is probably using NTFS, while the Apple device is probably using APFS. Different devices cannot always easily read file systems that they are not designed to use.
When preparing your USB drive, you will be asked to choose a file system. For the reasons stated above, whether you’re using macOS or Windows (or Linux), it’s probably best to format the USB drive using the exFAT file system and GUID partition table. exFAT provides a good balance between modern features and compatibility. These options will ensure that your USB drive works on almost any machine you plug it into.
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It is best practice to use a cleanly formatted USB drive. Guides for both macOS and Windows can be easily found online.
Once we have our newly formatted media, it is time to use an encryption tool to encrypt the entire USB drive or create an encrypted volume on the drive.
Cryptographic tools are common in today’s computing world and serve many useful functions. The traffic you send over the web is routinely encrypted to ensure that no one gaining access can read it, and many computers and phones have their entire hard drives encrypted so that data remains safe if the device is lost or stolen.
Recommends using a tool that can encrypt and decrypt the entire device (USB drives, internal drives, etc.) as well as a small collection of files. Once encrypted, this device will be used to store your vault export.
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There are many encryption tools available on the internet. Popular options include VeraCrypt, PeaZip, and 7-Zip for file storage, but many more are available. This guide will detail how to use VeraCrypt and PeaZip to backup your vault.
PeaZip, VeraCrypt, and 7-Zip are third-party programs and are not supported or approved by. You must complete your own due diligence and agree to the terms of service before using them.
To prepare your USB drive, you should follow the VeraCrypt tutorial, but also pay attention to the following suggestions:
Once you complete the Final Step of the VeraCrypt tutorial, you will be ready to back up your files to your new encrypted media!
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You should now have a USB drive in your File Explorer/Finder that has space for unencrypted content and also contains an encrypted volume. Note that the encrypted volume appears as a separate drive even though it is actually a “folder” located on the USB drive.
PhotoFinish is the name of this USB drive and NO NAME was created by VeraCrypt. Although they appear as separate volumes, they reside on the same USB device.
Copy the file from your computer to the new encrypted volume. NOTE: It is very important that you store your vault on an encrypted volume (NO NAME) and not on an unencrypted volume (PhotoFinish in the example case below):
Vault export was copied to encrypted volume but original file remained on desktop
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PeaZip is another option for creating an encrypted zip file into which you can place your vault export as well as any other files you want to store securely.
Once the program has opened, select the Insert menu button and then select Password protect, 7Z format from the pop-up menu that appears:
You will be asked to create a password for your encrypted zip file. Please make sure you use a different password than the one protecting your safe!
Once this is done, you can drag and drop your vault export file to the PeaZip storage along with any other files you want to be kept safely.
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Clicking the OK button will create the password-protected .7z file, ready to copy to your USB drive.
As with any secure file, you should always test that the password function works, that is, that you can unlock the secure archive and also that you are actually asked to enter a password to view your files!
PeaZip also has a handy Secure Erase function that can be used to ensure that your vault export cannot be undone once deleted. In the screenshot below, once the file is copied to the USB drive it is used to delete both the unencrypted vault transfer and the encrypted copy on the mac desktop.
In the examples above, a README file is placed on unencrypted storage that is available to anyone who plugs the drive into their computer without a password. Additionally, downloaded copies of the encryption tool for Windows and macOS are placed on the bar for your convenience.
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There are many good options (and lots of animated discussions!) about where to store the password for your encrypted vault backup. Here are some popular suggestions from the community:
The last option is interesting because it saves you from having to store your USB-Stick password anywhere! For example, your README might contain something like the following:
The decryption key is the answers to the following questions, separated by ‘-‘ characters. There are no spaces between answers and the answer is written in all lowercase letters.
Q1: What is it?
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