The decoy and the emergency pattern

The emergency pattern is for the moment someone makes you open your vaults. Draw it instead of your usual pattern: it opens the decoy vault and quietly deletes every other vault on this iPhone.

What it is

One vault on this iPhone can be the decoy, with one emergency pattern. The app explains: “One vault on this iPhone can be the decoy. Drawing its emergency pattern on the pad opens the decoy and deletes every other vault on this iPhone, without a message. The main screen isn’t touched. Recoverable vaults’ copies in your account and your iCloud backup stay encrypted and come back only with your vaults key and each vault’s pattern. The emergency pattern works once. For the decoy, and for anything that must stay gone, choose This iPhone only.”

Only one decoy per iPhone. Making a vault the decoy replaces any earlier one.
Only whoever knows the current emergency pattern can change it or turn it off. Someone who can open one of your other vaults can’t disarm it.
It still works if the decoy is gone. If you delete the decoy, the emergency pattern still deletes every other vault, then opens an empty vault.

What it doesn’t do

It only deletes vaults on this iPhone. Copies of recoverable vaults in Sync & Backup or your iCloud backup stay encrypted. They come back only with your vaults key and each vault’s pattern, so keep the key out of reach.
It doesn’t touch Home or anything outside your vaults.
It loses Lock Screen camera shots that no vault has imported yet.

When to use it

If you think you might one day be forced to open a vault: at a border, in an abusive relationship, during a robbery. “Keep believable papers in the decoy: an empty or stale decoy looks like one.”

Step by step

Make a vault the decoy

You need Pro.

Open the vault you want as the decoy. Tap the settings button (the gear) → Decoy and emergency pattern….
Tap Use this vault as the decoy…. “Make this vault the decoy? If another vault was the decoy, it stops being one and its emergency pattern stops working.” Tap Continue, and confirm with Face ID.
“Draw the current emergency pattern. If none is set, draw any pattern.”
Draw the new emergency pattern twice.

The answer is always “Saved. Test it to be sure.” The emergency pattern must be different from this vault’s own pattern.

Test it safely

On the same screen, tap Test the emergency pattern and draw it. “Yes: it opens this vault and deletes the others.” means it’s set for this vault. Nothing is deleted. Every test counts as a try.

Turn it off

Tap Turn off the emergency pattern and draw the current emergency pattern. The answer is always “Done. If the emergency pattern still works afterwards (Test), the pattern you drew wasn’t it.”

Use it

On the pad, after Face ID, draw the emergency pattern as if it were a normal one. The decoy opens as usual.

Free and Pro

Pro: the decoy and the emergency pattern. On Free, the row opens the Pro screen.

If Pro ends, the emergency pattern keeps working, and you can still turn it off.

Privacy

The screen looks the same in every vault, whether or not a decoy exists, and the answers are the same whatever happened. Nothing tells someone else that an emergency pattern is set.
The other vaults’ keys are erased before the decoy appears, so their contents can’t be opened on this iPhone. Their encrypted files can stay on the phone, unreadable.
“The emergency pattern is as secret as everything it protects: anyone who sees it and can pass Face ID can delete your other vaults.”

Tips

Practise with Test, not with the real thing.
Make the decoy This iPhone only, so it never comes back from a backup either.
Make sure each vault you’d want back is Recoverable, and keep your vaults key away from the phone.

What if…

What if I drew the emergency pattern by mistake?

The other vaults on this iPhone are deleted. Recoverable ones come back with your vaults key and each pattern: see Restore vaults on a new iPhone. Then choose a decoy again.

What if it says “Choose a pattern you don’t use to open this vault.”?

The emergency pattern can’t be the decoy’s own pattern. Draw a different one.

What if I move to a new iPhone?

The decoy and emergency pattern never come back from a backup. Set them again.