What Private vaults are

A private vault is a locked place inside Paperwise for the things you’d rather nobody stumbled on: IDs, medical papers, private photos and videos, secure notes. Each vault opens with Face ID and a pattern you draw, and Paperwise never lists your vaults or says how many there are.

What it is

Everything Paperwise stores on your iPhone is encrypted with its own key, kept in this iPhone’s Keychain. That key isn’t behind Face ID, so the app lock is what keeps people out of Home. A vault goes further:

Face ID and a pattern, every time. A vault opens only after Face ID, with the pattern you draw on a 5×5 grid of dots. There’s no code and no passcode.
Every pattern opens a vault. A pattern Paperwise knows opens its vault. A pattern it doesn’t know opens a new, empty vault, which looks exactly like an empty one you already have. There’s no “wrong pattern” message, so nobody can tell from the screen how many vaults exist.
Kept apart from everything else. Vault items never appear on Home, in Recent, All items, folders, shelves, search, the Tools pickers, the AI helper, widgets or notifications. Nothing in a vault is ever sent to AI.
Locks itself. A vault locks when you tap Back or Lock, when you leave the app, and after 5 minutes without use.
Screenshots blocked. Vault screens block screenshots and screen recording, and the app switcher shows a cover instead of your content. This is best effort: iOS can’t stop every capture, such as another camera pointed at the screen.

	Home	A private vault
Protected by	Paperwise’s encryption, with a key kept on this iPhone (not behind Face ID), and the app lock when it’s on	Paperwise’s encryption, with keys that need Face ID and the vault’s pattern
Shows in search	Yes	Never
Can be sent to AI	Only when you allow it (Pro)	Never
Deleting	Goes to Recently deleted for 30 days	Deleted for good, at once
Opening	Face ID, when the app lock is on. IDs, medical, bank and tax papers always ask	Always Face ID and the vault’s pattern

Inside a vault the title shows the vault’s name (or Private vault) with a lock. The chips All, Documents, Photos and Notes filter what you see. At the top: Back, Select, the settings button and Lock. At the bottom: Camera for the private camera, and + to scan, write a secure note, import files or move things in.

When to use it

Passports, ID cards, residence permits, medical results: anything you’d hate to see on screen while someone looks over your shoulder.
Private photos and videos you want out of the Photos app.
Notes with account numbers or other details you only want behind a lock.

IDs, medical, bank and tax papers on Home already get extra care: their previews show a lock, and opening, sharing or exporting them asks for Face ID. Anything nobody should even know exists goes in a vault.

Step by step

Open Private vaults:
- tap the round lock button at the top of Home, next to your avatar, or
- if you turned that button off, go to Account → Lock and privacy → Open Private vaults, or
- on iPad, tap Private vaults in the sidebar.
The first time, set up Private vaults and save your vaults key. See Set up Private vaults.
Face ID, then draw a pattern. A new pattern starts a new vault; it’s kept once you save something in it.
Add things with Camera or +.

Free and Pro

Private vaults are free: one vault, the private camera, the Lock Screen camera, secure notes, scans and files, moving photos in from Photos, and the vaults key.

Pro: up to 100 vaults, a decoy with an emergency pattern, the disguised app icon, share links from vault items and syncing vaults across your devices with Sync & Backup.

Only these limits are public. Paperwise never shows how many vaults you have.

Privacy

Each vault item is encrypted on your iPhone as it’s saved, with its own key. Those keys open only with Face ID on this iPhone and that vault’s pattern.
Your vaults key, which can bring vaults back on a new iPhone, is never stored by Paperwise: not on the phone, not in iCloud, not on our servers. See The vaults key and recovery.
If you use the encrypted iCloud backup or Sync & Backup, vault items travel only as ciphertext. Their keys never travel with them. The details are in the security whitepaper.
Readable copies exist only while you look at, share or print something, and copies you share or export leave the vault.

Tips

Use Move to a vault in a document’s More menu to move it from Home into a vault.
Turn on Save to a vault on the scan review screen to send a new scan straight into a vault, with no copy on Home.
Keep your vaults key on paper, away from your iPhone.

What if…

What if I don’t see the lock button on Home?

Show the vault lock on the main screen is off. Open your vaults from Account → Lock and privacy → Open Private vaults, or turn the setting back on. See Show the vault lock on the main screen.

What if my vault opens empty?

Patterns are exact. If you drew a slightly different pattern, a new, empty vault opened. Tap Back and draw it again.

What if I delete something in a vault by mistake?

Deleting in a vault is for good: there’s no Recently deleted. That’s why the app asks Delete for good? first. To take something out of a vault without deleting it, use Move to the main screen instead.