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KP2BW - KeePass to Bitwarden Converter

PyPI

Fork of jampe/kp2bw, modernized.

Migrates KeePass databases to Bitwarden via the bw CLI, with advantages over the built-in Bitwarden importer:

  • Encrypted in-memory transfer -- data never hits disk unencrypted (except attachments, which are cleaned up after upload)
  • KeePass REF resolution -- username/password references are resolved: matching credentials merge URLs into one entry; differing ones create new entries
  • Passkey migration -- KeePassXC FIDO2/passkey credentials (KPEX_PASSKEY_*) are converted to Bitwarden fido2Credentials
  • Custom properties & attachments -- imported as Bitwarden custom fields or attachments (values > 10k chars auto-upload as files)
  • Long notes handling -- notes exceeding 10k chars are uploaded as notes.txt attachments
  • Idempotent -- safe to run multiple times without duplicating entries
  • Nested folders -- KeePass folder hierarchy is recreated in Bitwarden
  • Recycle Bin filtering -- deleted entries are automatically excluded
  • Expiry awareness -- expired entries are marked [EXPIRED] in notes; optionally skip them entirely with --skip-expired
  • Metadata preservation -- KeePass tags, expiry dates, and created/modified timestamps are stored as Bitwarden custom fields
  • Tag filtering -- import only entries matching specific tags
  • Organization & collection support -- upload into a Bitwarden organization with automatic or manual collection assignment
  • Full UTF-8 & cross-platform -- works on Windows, macOS, and Linux

Installation

# install with:
uv tool install kp2bw
kp2bw passwords.kdbx

# or run directly without installing:
uvx kp2bw

or from a GitHub URL:

# install with:
uv tool install git+https://github.com/kjanat/kp2bw
kp2bw passwords.kdbx

# run directly without installing:
uvx --from git+https://github.com/kjanat/kp2bw kp2bw passwords.kdbx

Prerequisites

Install the Bitwarden CLI and log in once before using kp2bw:

# optional: point to a self-hosted instance
bw config server https://your-domain.com/

# log in (only needed once; kp2bw uses `bw unlock` afterwards)
bw login <user>

Usage

kp2bw [-h] [-V] [-k PASSWORD] [-K FILE] [-b PASSWORD] [-o ID]
       [-t TAG [TAG ...]] [-c ID] [--path-to-name | --no-path-to-name]
       [--path-to-name-skip N] [--skip-expired | --no-skip-expired]
       [--include-recycle-bin | --no-include-recycle-bin]
       [--metadata | --no-metadata] [-y] [-v] [-d]
       FILE
Flag Description Env var
keepass_file Path to your KeePass 2.x database -
-k, --keepass-password KeePass password (prompted if omitted) KP2BW_KEEPASS_PASSWORD
-K, --keepass-keyfile KeePass key file KP2BW_KEEPASS_KEYFILE
-b, --bitwarden-password Bitwarden password (prompted if omitted) KP2BW_BITWARDEN_PASSWORD
-o, --bitwarden-org Bitwarden Organization ID KP2BW_BITWARDEN_ORG
-c, --bitwarden-collection Collection ID, or auto to derive from top-level folder names KP2BW_BITWARDEN_COLLECTION
-t, --import-tags Only import entries with these tags KP2BW_IMPORT_TAGS (comma-separated)
--path-to-name / --no-path-to-name Prepend folder path to entry names (default: off) KP2BW_PATH_TO_NAME
--path-to-name-skip Skip first N folders in path prefix (default: 1) KP2BW_PATH_TO_NAME_SKIP
--skip-expired Skip entries that have expired in KeePass KP2BW_SKIP_EXPIRED
--include-recycle-bin Include Recycle Bin entries (excluded by default) KP2BW_INCLUDE_RECYCLE_BIN
--metadata / --no-metadata Toggle KeePass metadata as custom fields (default: on) KP2BW_MIGRATE_METADATA
-y, --yes Skip the Bitwarden CLI setup confirmation prompt KP2BW_YES
-v, --verbose Verbose output KP2BW_VERBOSE
-d, --debug Debug output — includes third-party library logs KP2BW_DEBUG
-V, --version Print the installed kp2bw version and exit -

Configuration precedence is always: CLI flag > environment variable > built-in default.

Troubleshooting

"Invalid master password" on bw unlock

If your password contains special shell characters (?, >, &, etc.), wrap it in double quotes when prompted. See jampe#10 and libkeepass/pykeepass#254 for details.

bw serve startup timeout

kp2bw starts bw serve on a random localhost port. If it times out after 60s:

  • Check that bw is installed and on your PATH
  • Run bw login once if you haven't already
  • Ensure no firewall rules block localhost connections
  • Try bw serve --port 8087 --hostname 127.0.0.1 manually to see if it starts

Items skipped unexpectedly during org import

When importing with --bitwarden-org, items already present in the organization vault are skipped. If you're importing into a specific collection (--bitwarden-collection), only items already in that collection are considered duplicates — items in other collections will be created or updated.

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Python based KeePass to Bitwarden converter

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