Forgot Your Photo Vault Password? What You Can Still Do
Being locked out of your own photo vault is stressful. Before you do anything else, read the first step, because the most common mistake makes things permanent.
Step 1: Do not delete the app
Deleting a vault app almost always deletes the vault's files with it. Even if you plan to reinstall, the data stored inside the app is usually gone the moment you delete it. Leave the app installed while you work through the steps below.
Step 2: Try the codes you actually used
- Try your iPhone passcode. Many people set the same code without remembering.
- Try older codes, birthdays and patterns you use elsewhere.
- Some apps let you set a fake or decoy code. Make sure you are not opening a decoy and assuming your files are gone.
Go slowly. Some apps add a delay or wipe data after too many wrong attempts. Check the app's help page for its limit first.
Step 3: Use the recovery method you set up
Open the app's settings or the unlock screen and look for options such as Forgot code, Recovery phrase or Recovery email.
- Recovery phrase: type the words exactly as you wrote them down.
- Recovery email: the app sends a reset link. This works, but it also means the developer or anyone with access to your email can reset your vault.
- Security question: answer it the way you would have when you set it up.
Step 4: Contact the developer
Find the support link on the app's App Store page. Explain what you have tried. Be prepared for an honest "we cannot help": a vault designed so the developer cannot see your files usually also means the developer cannot reset your code.
Why secure vaults often cannot be reset
In a well-designed vault, your code is used to make the encryption key. The developer never stores the key or the code. That is exactly what keeps your files safe from everyone else, and it is also why nobody can unlock them for you. Some apps add a recovery phrase as a safety net; every safety net is also one more way in.
How it works in Units
Units has no recovery. No phrase, no reset email, no support override. If you forget your pattern, the vault cannot be opened by anyone, including us. That is the point: a vault with a back door for you has a back door for someone else too.
So the work happens when you choose the pattern:
- Pick a shape you can picture. A letter, a path you trace without thinking, or a shape that means something only to you. Units asks for at least four dots and one turn, and rates six dots Safe and seven or more Perfect; eight to twelve dots is better.
- Use it nowhere else. Not your phone unlock, not another app. A pattern someone has watched you draw elsewhere is not a secret.
- Open the vault now and then. A pattern you draw every couple of weeks stays in your hands.
- Change it while you still know it. Inside a vault, Settings has Change pattern. If you feel it slipping, switch to a shape you are sure of.
Avoid this next time
- If your app offers a recovery phrase, write it on paper and keep it somewhere you would keep a passport.
- Do not store a code or phrase in a screenshot or on the same phone.
- Pick a code or pattern you will remember, then make it longer rather than more random.
- Open your vault every few weeks so the code stays in your memory.