8th
Sync mSecure using Dropbox
The authors of the (otherwise excellent) mSecure password database for iOS and OS X do not let you chose where to save the password database. This makes it difficult to use Dropbox or a USB key to share the same database between, say, a home and a work computer.
Yes, you can manually sync via and iPhone or via the new “Dropbox sync” feature in v3.0. But manual syncing falls down the first time you get home and realize that you forgot to sync at work, and now you don’t have the password you really need. F**k that.
In the case of Dropbox sync, there is a workaround: move the mSecure folder from “~/Library/Application Support” into your Dropbox, then create a symlink to the moved folder in Application Support. Create the same symlink on your other computers.
You can’t just symlink the password db file, as mSecure will overwrite the symlink with an actual file.
Here’s how you do it, in Terminal, on the first computer:
cd ~/Library/Application\ Support
mv mSecure ~/Desktop/Dropbox/
ln -s ~/Desktop/Dropbox/mSecure ./On the second through nth computers, just create the symlink after deleting the existing mSecure folder:
cd ~/Library/Application\ Support
mv mSecure ~/.Trash/
ln -s ~/Desktop/Dropbox/mSecure ./You will still need to sync your iOS devices manually, but at least you’ll have an always-synced desktop version to use when you do that.
For users who want to put their mSecure db on a USB key or in a TrueCrypt archive: well, you’re out of luck. You could use the symlink trick, but I suspect that if you launch mSecure and the symlink is broken (because you don’t have the USB key in place) it will happily create a new folder with a blank db. Haven’t tested it, feel free to comment.
