# Legacy environment variable secrets are being sunset

**Published:** February 1, 2024 | **Authors:** Ana Jovanova, Marc Greenstock, Bel Curcio, Angela Zhang

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Legacy [secrets](https://vercel.com/docs/cli/secrets) are being sunset in favor of [Sensitive Environment Variables](https://vercel.com/changelog/sensitive-environment-variables-are-now-available), which are now [shareable across projects](https://vercel.com/docs/projects/environment-variables/shared-environment-variables).

- **Existing legacy secrets will be automatically converted.** You do not need to manually take action for non-development values. Read below to view your impacted projects.
- **All Environment Variables remain securely encrypted.** The majority of Vercel workloads have moved from the legacy secrets functionality.

On **May 1st, 2024** secrets will be automatically converted to sensitive Environment Variables for Preview and Production environments. Secrets attached to Development environments **will not** be migrated.

**Why are legacy secrets being sunset?**

Our legacy secrets were encrypted values global for your entire team and could only be managed through the CLI. Based on your feedback, we have since:

- Made all Environment Variables encrypted by default
- Added [Sensitive Environment Variables](https://vercel.com/docs/projects/environment-variables/sensitive-environment-variables) to prevent values from being decrypted by users
- Added [Shared Environment Variables](https://vercel.com/docs/projects/environment-variables/shared-environment-variables) to reuse truly global values across teams

**When will I no longer be able to use secrets?**

On **May 1st, 2024**, [secrets](https://vercel.com/docs/cli/secrets) will be removed from Vercel CLI:

- Existing secrets added to the **Preview** and **Production** environments will be converted to Sensitive Environment Variables
- Existing secrets added to the **Development** environment will not be migrated for your security. If you have a secret shared between all environments, including Development, it will not be migrated. These values must be manually migrated.

**How can I migrate to Sensitive Environment Variables?**

Secrets for Preview and Production environments will be automatically migrated.

For secrets which contain the Development environment, you should create new [Sensitive Environment Variables](https://vercel.com/docs/projects/environment-variables/sensitive-environment-variables), as these values will not be automatically migrated for your security. If you need to share Environment Variables across projects, you can [make them shared](https://vercel.com/docs/projects/environment-variables/shared-environment-variables).

**How can I understand if I’m affected?**

To list projects using secrets that will be automatically converted, run:

**Terminal**
```bash
vercel secrets ls
```

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📚 **More updates:** [View all changelog entries](/changelog/sitemap.md) | [Blog](/blog/sitemap.md)