1Password Adds "Travel Mode" to Keep Accounts Private While Traveling

Password managers are an excellent tool for keeping your accounts safe — especially if you're like us and have dozens of mileage program accounts and many credit card accounts. Companies like LastPass and 1Password let you set one password to unlock a virtual vault of randomly generated passwords used for your mileage, banking and social accounts. No need for sticky notes or cryptic codes to remind you of your passwords.

Good news if you use the 1Password password manager and like to travel. 1Password has just added "Travel Mode" to help keep your accounts private when traveling. Here's how it works:

First, you're going to want to group accounts into "vaults," making sure that you're grouping accounts that you want while traveling together. Next, set which vaults your want accessible during your trip. Then, right before traveling, go into your profile and enable Travel Mode. This will remove vaults from your app that haven't been marked safe for travel.

This option can be especially useful when you encounter a curious border agent. You aren't legally required to give passwords to a US border guard, but your devices can be taken for analysis if you refuse.

If you are using 1Password's Travel Mode, you can give your 1Password master key to the border agent (or enter it yourself). This will only grant access to the accounts that you have included in the Travel Mode vault(s). For any other accounts, you can honestly tell the border agent that you don't know the password.

1Password didn't go into details about exactly how Travel Mode can be disabled, only that "When you’re done traveling, return to My Profile and click Disable Travel Mode." Hopefully, this can't be disabled via the app. If so, border agents would wise up to this fairly quickly and insist that you do so before handing over your phone.