KeePass on iPhone and iPad: Best Alternatives to KeePass Touch With Offline Access
The Real Problem With KeePass Touch and OneDrive
KeePass Touch doesn’t cache your database in a way that’s easy to fall back on. When you open the app and OneDrive is unreachable — no Wi-Fi, flaky mobile data, or a train tunnel — it just keeps trying to connect. Hit Cancel and the whole app closes. You’re locked out of your passwords until you reset and reconfigure the sync service. Real problem.
The fix isn’t complicated. You need a KeePass-compatible iOS app that stores a local copy of your database and opens that copy automatically when the cloud sync fails.
KeePassium: Built for This Exact Situation
KeePassium is an open-source KeePass client for iOS and iPadOS. Every time you open your database successfully, it updates a cached local copy on your device. If OneDrive — or iCloud, Dropbox, wherever you store your KDBX file — is unreachable the next time you open the app, KeePassium falls back to that cached copy instead of hanging indefinitely.
Since version 1.38, you can configure the fallback behavior explicitly in Settings. Options include waiting and retrying, opening the cache immediately on timeout, or showing an error. For most people, opening the cache on timeout is the right setting.
OneDrive is supported directly. Point KeePassium at your KDBX file on OneDrive, open it once on a working connection, and the local cache is ready for offline use from then on.
Free vs. Pro
The free version covers opening databases, AutoFill, and Face ID unlock. Advanced features like multiple databases and additional sync options are behind a Pro subscription. For a single database on OneDrive, free is enough to solve the problem described here.
Strongbox: More Features, Same KDBX Format
Strongbox is the other serious KeePass-compatible option for Apple devices. It also maintains an optional local cache and can open it when cloud storage is unreachable. Connect once with OneDrive, and the cached copy stays ready for offline use.
Where Strongbox stands out is its merge sync. Instead of uploading the whole database file on every save, it only reads and writes changed entries. If you edit your database on more than one device — iPhone and Mac, for instance — this avoids conflicts rather than just overwriting the latest version.
Strongbox also supports hardware security keys and includes a password auditing feature. Useful if you want to check for weak or reused entries. The free tier is read-only; full editing requires a Pro license.
Other Alternatives Worth Knowing
Enpass stores its vault on-device and syncs via iCloud, OneDrive, Dropbox, or a local Wi-Fi server. It uses its own vault format rather than KDBX, so it’s not a drop-in KeePass replacement — but offline access is solid and the app is polished. Worth considering if you’re open to migrating away from the KeePass ecosystem entirely.
Bitwarden is the standard recommendation for anyone who doesn’t need the KeePass format specifically. Free, open-source, cross-platform. The mobile app caches the vault locally, so offline access works without any configuration. The trade-off: your vault lives on Bitwarden’s servers by default, or your own if you self-host with Vaultwarden.
Which One to Pick
If you want to keep your KDBX database on OneDrive and just need the offline fallback to work reliably, KeePassium is the simplest switch. Install it, add your OneDrive file, open it once on a working connection, and from that point it handles offline gracefully. No manual sync resets, no app-closing dead ends.
Strongbox is the better pick if you regularly edit your database across multiple devices and want the smarter merge sync, or if you use a hardware security key.
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