A vault nobody else can open
Files go in encrypted. The password you chose is the only thing that opens them again — and there is no support desk, no master key and no server that can do it for you.
Most vault apps do not encrypt anything
Independent teardowns in early 2026 found that many popular photo hiders just
put a PIN screen in front of your files. Pull the storage into a computer and
the pictures are still there, still readable, still named
IMG_4471.jpg.
You should not take our word for the opposite either. Here is the same test, run against this app, on real on-device storage:
# the encrypted file, straight off the phone $ xxd -l 48 vaults/4fafaa87/cbb4a430.enc 00000000: 4c4d 4656 4155 4c54 0101 0000 0000 1000 LMFVAULT........ 00000010: 2300 0000 0000 0000 b0cf 480e 65f9 5274 #.........H.e.Rt 00000020: 9279 8102 c605 493c 4c7a f21f c891 faee .y....I<Lz...... # search every stored byte for the file's real contents, # its name, and the password $ grep -a "account 123-456-789" vault.db vault.db-wal *.enc clean: appears nowhere $ grep -a "notes.txt" vault.db vault.db-wal *.enc clean: appears nowhere
What makes this one different
Your files stay on the phone
There is no upload, no cloud storage and no backup of your vaults. Every file is encrypted on the device with a key that never leaves it.
File names are encrypted too
Encrypting contents while divorce-papers.pdf sits in a
database is not privacy. Names, sizes and types live inside the encrypted
blob.
One file can have its own password
Separate from the vault. Someone holding your vault password and your recovery words still cannot open that file, or see its name.
Opens inside the app
Photos, video, audio and text play in the vault. Nothing is handed to another app just to look at it.
There is no password to steal
No verifier is stored, so there is nothing to check a guess against. The only way to test a password is to run the full key derivation — about a second per attempt.
The vault is bought once
One payment, and the vault on your phone is yours. The market leader charges up to $120 a year for the same job.
What the app is allowed to send
Earlier versions of this page said the app had no internet permission at all, and that was true. It is not any more, and pretending otherwise would be exactly the behaviour this site was built to call out. Here is what changed and what it means.
The app now has an optional account, used for two things: inviting a friend, and multi-device sync when it ships. Signing in needs network access, so the app requests it. Everything else about the vault is unchanged.
What is sent, if you sign in
Your email address, the 6-digit code we mail you, an invite code, and a random id for the install. That is the complete list.
What is never sent
Your app passcode. Any vault password. Your recovery words. Your files. The names of your files. How many you have. None of it, ever.
If you never sign in
Nothing is sent at all. No account is created, no address is collected, and every feature of the vault works exactly as it did — offline, on a plane, forever.
You can erase the account
One button in the app deletes your email address from our server for good. It is the only thing about you we hold.
How it compares
| SealKeep | Cloud vault apps | Typical free hider | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Encrypts file contents | Yes | Usually | Often not |
| Encrypts file names | Yes | Rarely | No |
| Uploads your files by default | Never | Yes | Often |
| Works fully without an account | Yes | No | Sometimes |
| Can staff reset your password | No | Often yes | Often yes |
| Price | $14.99 once | Up to $120/yr | Free, ad-funded |
What it does not do
Read this before paying for anything. These limits are real and permanent.
- Nobody can reset your password. Having an account does not change this. The account knows your email address and nothing else — it cannot open a vault, and neither can we. Each vault gives you 12 recovery words at creation; lose those and the password and the files are gone.
- Nothing is backed up. Lose the phone and the vaults go with it. A vault is not a backup — it is the opposite of one.
- The original file stays where it was. Adding a file copies it. The original sits in your gallery until you delete it, and the app says so at the time.
- Playing a video writes it out briefly. The player needs a real file, so a decrypted copy lives in the app's private storage while it plays and is deleted when you close it. Photos and text never touch disk.
- The vault's name is stored in the clear. It has to be, so the app can list vaults before anything is unlocked. Call one "Documents", not something you would not want read aloud.
- Sync is not built yet. It is announced, not shipped. The invite programme is real and the days you earn are being counted, but there is nothing to sync with today.
Questions
What happens if I forget my password?
The files are gone, permanently. That is not a gap — any app that can reset your password can also open your data without you. Your 12 recovery words are the only way back, which is why the app makes you confirm you wrote them down. The longer answer.
How do I know it really encrypts?
Check it. The method takes about fifteen minutes, needs only
adb, and works on any vault app including this one.
Here is how.
Do I have to make an account?
No, and most people should not bother. The vault is complete without one. An account exists only for inviting friends and for sync when it arrives. Skip the account and the app never sends anything anywhere.
What is the invite thing?
Send a friend your code. When they install the app with it, you both get 30 free days of sync, up to twelve friends. It is tied to the email address they sign up with, which is the only reason the account asks for one.
You used to say the app had no internet permission. What happened?
We added one, for accounts and sync, and it cost us the best claim this app had. The replacement claim is narrower and stated plainly above: one file in the app opens a connection, and it sends your email address and nothing else. We would rather write that sentence than quietly change the page.
Is there a cloud backup?
No. Sync, when it ships, will carry encrypted copies between your own devices — unreadable to us, with keys that stay on your phones. That is not a backup, and it is not us holding your files in the clear. If you lose every device, the files are still gone.
Does it hide the app itself?
No. Disguising a vault as a calculator is a popular feature and a bad idea: it is the first thing anyone who suspects a vault looks for, and it encourages people to rely on concealment instead of encryption.
Is the source code available?
Not currently. That is a fair thing to hold against a security product, and the honest answer is that the published verification method exists precisely so the claims can be checked without it.
Not out yet
Both store listings are in progress. If you want to know when it lands, email [email protected]. That is the entire mailing list — no tracking pixel, no drip sequence, one message when it ships.