Protected documents, Never send to AI and Hidden

Your vault is locked with Face ID. IDs, medical, bank and tax papers get extra care automatically: their previews are blurred, opening, sharing or exporting them asks for Face ID, and AI never names them automatically. Anything nobody should even know exists goes in Hidden.

There’s no switch to turn on. A document’s type decides whether it’s protected, and the ••• menu has the rest: Change type…, Never send to AI and Move to Hidden. You can use them together.

What it is

What	What it does	Where the document stays
Protected by type	IDs, medical papers, bank statements and tax papers. Their previews are locked, and opening, sharing or exporting them asks for Face ID. AI never names them automatically.	In your vault, as before.
Never send to AI	The document is never sent to AI, by any feature, until you remove the mark.	In your vault, as before.
Move to Hidden	Moves the document into Hidden, under keys only Face ID, your Hidden passcode or your recovery key open.	In Hidden only.

Never send to AI shows a checkmark in the menu when it’s on. Tap again to turn it off.

When to use it

Protected by type: nothing to do. A document is protected when its type is ID, Medical, Bank statement or Tax, whether AI set the type or you did.
Change type…: the type is wrong, or you want to add or remove the automatic protection.
Never send to AI: anything you never want to leave your iPhone readable, even by accident, such as a medical letter, even if you use the AI helper for everything else.
Move to Hidden: papers that shouldn’t appear anywhere in the vault at all, such as an ID scan, a passport or private photos. Cards and notes you want kept private go here too.

Step by step

What a protected document does

A document of type ID (IDs and passports), Medical, Bank statement or Tax:

Shows a lock instead of its pages in every grid, list, cover, shelf, folder cover and search result. Search doesn’t show a snippet of its text.
Asks for Face ID before it opens, shares or exports, whether or not the app lock is on. If Face ID doesn’t recognise you, iOS offers your device passcode. This covers the share sheet, export, share links, Quick Look and, on iPad, drag and drop: a protected document never drags out of Paperwise.
Doesn’t ask again for 60 seconds after a successful Face ID, so you can open and share it without unlocking at every tap.
Is never named or sorted automatically by AI. If you ask AI for something on it yourself, you see the usual AI notice first.

Copies keep the type, so they stay protected: Duplicate, Merge with…, Split and Make it a scan all make protected copies of a protected document. An ID card scan is typed ID, so it’s protected from the start.

Change a document’s type

Open the document and tap •••.
Tap Change type….
Pick a type: Receipt, Invoice, Bill, Bank statement, ID, Business card, Contract, Letter, Form, Notes, Whiteboard, Book page, Academic, Medical, Tax, Certificate or Other.

The change takes effect at once. Changing an ID, medical, bank or tax paper to another type removes its automatic protection, so Paperwise asks for Face ID first. Changing it back to ID, Medical, Bank statement or Tax brings it back. Notes, files and cards have Change type… too.

When Paperwise suggests Hidden

When a document is a protected type, or becomes one (for example when AI names it), the document shows a quiet banner once: “This looks like an ID. Move it to Hidden?” For other types it says “a medical document”, “a bank statement” or “a tax document”.

Tap Move to Hidden to move it now (see below).
Tap Not now to keep it in your vault. Paperwise remembers that for this document and doesn’t ask again.

The banner never shows for items already in Hidden.

Mark a document Never send to AI

Open the document and tap •••.
Tap Never send to AI. You see “This document will never be sent to AI”.
The meta line under the title now ends with “No AI”.

From now on, Ask, Extract, Translate, Read handwriting, naming and Keep the layout all stop before anything is sent, with “This document is set to never be sent to AI.” Name and sort new scans skips it too. To undo, tap Never send to AI again; you see “AI can read it again”.

Cards don’t have this mark: they’re never sent to AI.

Move a document to Hidden

Open the document and tap ••• → Move to Hidden.
If you haven’t set up Hidden yet, Paperwise walks you through it first, including your recovery key. See Set up Hidden.
Confirm with Face ID (and your Hidden passcode or pattern, if you set one).
The document is encrypted into Hidden and leaves the screen. You see where to find it.

To open it later: Vault → Hidden. If Show Hidden in vault is off, use Account → Lock and privacy → Open Hidden.

To turn on the app lock for the whole vault, go to Account → Lock and privacy → Face ID lock. See The app lock.

Free and Pro

All of this is free. Hidden is free too (one space). Pro adds separate spaces and an emergency passcode; see Separate spaces.

Privacy

Protection by type is a lock on the door, not a safe. It asks for Face ID before the document opens or leaves Paperwise, but the document stays in your vault. Everything Paperwise stores in your vault (pages, files, photos, thumbnails and the database of titles, text, notes and tags) is encrypted with its own key, kept in this iPhone’s Keychain for this device only. That vault key isn’t behind Face ID, so sync and backup work with the app lock off; something running as Paperwise on an unlocked iPhone could read the vault. Keep papers that need more in Hidden.

Never send to AI is checked right before every AI request. A marked document never shows the AI notice and no request is made at all. It doesn’t change how the document is stored. Note that it covers AI only: a Word, Excel or PowerPoint conversion with the basic layout isn’t AI, and still sends the pages to our server after asking you. See Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Hidden is the strongest. Hidden adds keys only Face ID, your Hidden passcode or your recovery key open. When you move a document to Hidden, its vault copy (encrypted with the vault key) is deleted and its words leave the vault’s search at once. Hidden items are never sent to AI, never appear on a shelf, in All items, in search or in notifications. If sync or the iCloud backup is on, they stay encrypted under their own keys there too. Details: What Hidden is.

Tips

Use them together: a medical report is protected by its type, and you can also mark it Never send to AI while it stays in your vault.
A payslip or a contract isn’t protected by type. If you want it to ask for Face ID, move it to Hidden, or, if it fits, change its type to Bank statement or Tax.
Copies you make with Duplicate, Split or Merge with… keep their source’s type and Never send to AI mark.
Moving photos from your camera roll into Hidden is a separate tool. See Move photos out of Photos.

What if…

What if a protected document opens without Face ID?

You passed Face ID in Paperwise less than 60 seconds ago. Or the document’s type isn’t ID, Medical, Bank statement or Tax: check it with ••• → Change type….

What if I don’t want a document protected?

Change its type with ••• → Change type… and confirm with Face ID. The lock on its previews and the Face ID check go away at once.

What if I want a card or a note protected?

There’s no separate switch. Either give it a protected type with ••• → Change type… (ID, Medical, Bank statement or Tax), or move it to Hidden with ••• → Move to Hidden.

What if I tapped an AI tool and nothing happened?

Look for the “This document is set to never be sent to AI.” message. Remove the mark if you want AI to read it.

What if Move to Hidden asks me to set up Hidden?

Hidden needs to be set up once, with a recovery key, before anything can go in. The document moves in as soon as setup is finished.

What if I want a hidden document back in the vault?

Open it in Hidden and tap Unhide, then confirm. It goes back to your vault, encrypted with the vault key rather than Hidden’s keys. If it’s an ID, medical, bank or tax paper, it’s protected there again. See Add things to Hidden.