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Your recovery key

When you set up Vaultie, it shows your recovery key once: 32 characters in 8 groups of 4, like K7Q2-9XBM-4HCV-… (an example, not a real key). Then it asks you to type one group back, so you know you’ve saved it.

• Write it down on paper, or keep it in a password manager you trust. Don’t keep it only as a screenshot or a note on the same phone.
• Keep it away from your phone. Anyone with your phone and this key can open your real vault.
• It opens your real vault if you forget your PIN, and it still works if your phone’s secure hardware ever loses Vaultie’s key (a rare problem on some Android phones).
• Lost it, or think someone saw it? Make a new one in Vaultie’s settings, under Security. You’ll need your PIN. The old key stops working straight away, so write the new one down.

Forgot your PIN

1. On the lock screen, tap Forgot PIN?
2. Enter your recovery key.
3. Choose a new PIN (or passphrase) and confirm it.
4. Your vault opens with everything where you left it.

If Face ID, Touch ID or fingerprint unlock doesn’t work afterwards, turn it on again in Vaultie’s settings. The recovery key opens your real vault only, never a decoy vault.

Lost your PIN and your recovery key

• If you have a .vaultie backup and remember its backup password: delete Vaultie, install it again, set it up with a new PIN and import the backup (see Moving to a new phone). You’ll get back everything that was in the vault when you made that backup.
• If you don’t: the only way forward is to delete Vaultie, install it again and start with an empty vault.
• Please don’t keep guessing. After 4 wrong tries, each new try has to wait longer, up to an hour.

Moving to a new phone

Your vault is not part of iCloud or Google device backups, on purpose: those copies couldn’t be opened without your old phone’s secure hardware. Use an encrypted Vaultie backup instead.

1. On your old phone, open Vaultie’s settings, go to Backup and export a backup.
2. Choose a backup password of at least 8 characters. Pick one you’ll remember: it’s the only way to open the backup, and we can’t reset it.
3. Save the .vaultie file somewhere your new phone can reach, such as iCloud Drive, Google Drive or a computer. It’s encrypted, so it’s safe to store there.
4. On your new phone, install Vaultie, set up your PIN and save the new recovery key it shows you.
5. In Vaultie’s settings, go to Backup, import the backup, choose the file and enter the backup password.
6. Check that everything is there before you erase your old phone.

• A backup holds the vault that was open when you made it: your real vault, or the decoy vault if you unlocked with the decoy PIN. Settings, the decoy vault and break-in history are not included.
• Importing the same backup twice is harmless: items already in your vault are skipped.
• Vaultie never uploads a backup itself; it only goes where you save it.

Decoy PIN

• Set it up in Vaultie’s settings, under Extra protection. It must be different from your real PIN.
• Unlocking with the decoy PIN opens a separate vault with its own photos, notes and albums. Add a few everyday things to it so it looks lived-in.
• In the decoy vault, the decoy, break-in alert and recovery key settings are hidden, and break-in alerts are never shown. While a decoy PIN exists, widgets don’t show an item count.
• A decoy protects you from someone looking over your shoulder or pressuring you to open the app. It isn’t designed to fool a forensic examination of the phone.

Break-in alerts

• Turn them on in Vaultie’s settings, under Extra protection, and choose after how many wrong tries (1 to 5) a photo is taken. Vaultie asks for camera access at that point.
• When it happens, the front camera takes one photo, without a preview. Your phone shows its usual camera indicator.
• The photo and the time are encrypted straight away and stay on your phone. The next time you unlock with your real PIN, you’ll see a note such as “3 wrong attempts · 10:42 pm”, with the photos.
• They are never uploaded, and they never appear in a decoy vault.

Face ID or fingerprint stopped working

That’s a safety feature. Vaultie’s Face ID, Touch ID or fingerprint key only works with the faces or fingerprints that were enrolled when you turned it on. When a new face or fingerprint is added to your phone (or Face ID is reset), your phone deletes that key, so nobody can add their own finger and walk in.

1. Unlock Vaultie with your PIN.
2. Vaultie offers to turn Face ID or fingerprint unlock back on. You can also do it any time in Vaultie’s settings, under Security.

Screenshots and screen recording

On Android

Vaultie blocks screenshots and screen recording, and its preview in the recent-apps screen is blank. Screen sharing and casting show a black screen too. That’s on purpose, to keep your vault off other screens and out of your gallery.

On iPhone

iOS doesn’t let any app block screenshots. What Vaultie can do, it does: the vault is covered in the app switcher, and it’s hidden while the screen is being recorded, mirrored or shared. Screenshots you take yourself are saved to Photos, outside the vault, so delete them if they show something private.

Widgets and privacy

• Vaultie’s widgets and controls never show a photo, a thumbnail, a note or a file name.
• At most they show how many items your vault holds and the date of your last backup. You can hide the count in Vaultie’s settings, and it is always hidden while a decoy PIN exists, so a widget can’t give the decoy away.
• Their buttons (Private camera, Quick note and Lock now) open Vaultie, which asks you to unlock first. Lock now locks the vault straight away.
• On iPhone there are also Control Center controls (iOS 18 and later), and on Android a Quick Settings tile for the private camera.

Locking and wrong PINs

• Auto-lock: Vaultie locks when you leave it, immediately by default, or after 15 seconds, 1 minute or 5 minutes. Opening the photo picker, the camera or a share sheet from inside Vaultie doesn’t count as leaving.
• Quick lock: turn it on and lay your phone face-down for about half a second to lock the vault.
• Wrong PINs: after 4 wrong tries in a row, you’ll wait 30 seconds before the next one. More wrong tries raise the wait to 1, 5, 15 and 30 minutes, then an hour each time. The right PIN resets the count.

Exporting and deleting originals

• When you export or share an item, Vaultie warns you first: the copy leaves the vault and is no longer protected by Vaultie.
• After importing from your gallery, Vaultie can delete the originals for you. Your phone asks you to confirm, and deleted items then wait in Recently Deleted (iPhone) or your gallery’s trash (Android) for up to 30 days. Empty it there if you want them gone for good.
• To delete everything in Vaultie, use Erase vault in Vaultie’s settings (it asks for your PIN and confirms twice), or delete the app. Backups you saved elsewhere aren’t affected.

2-step login codes

From version 1.1, the Codes tab makes the one-time codes sites ask for at sign-in, on your phone and without internet.

• Add an account: tap +, then scan the QR code on the site’s 2-step setup page, choose a screenshot of it, paste an otpauth:// link, or type the setup key the site shows under the QR code.
• From Google Authenticator: in Google Authenticator open the menu, tap Transfer accounts, then Export accounts. In Vaultie choose Import from Google Authenticator and scan each QR code it shows, then tap Import.
• Copying a code: tap it. It’s removed from the clipboard after a minute.
• Moving an account to another phone: long-press it, choose Show QR code, confirm with Face ID, fingerprint or your PIN, and scan it with the other phone.
• New phone: your accounts are included in Vaultie’s encrypted backups. Before you reset or give away the old phone, make a backup or move each account, so you don’t lose access to the sites.
• Deleting an account: first turn off 2-step login on the site, or move the account elsewhere, so you can still sign in.

Contact us

Email info@workaholicdevelopers.com. It helps to tell us your phone model, its iOS or Android version and Vaultie’s version (in Vaultie’s settings, under About).

Never send us your PIN, recovery key, backup password or anything from your vault. We will never ask for them, and we couldn’t use them to help you anyway.