How-to

From first setup to a sealed note

Fourteen steps, in the order they appear in the app. What you need to write down is said where it matters.

Two sentences first. This app has no e-mail recovery, because there is nobody who could carry it out — your key is made on your device and never leaves it. What you write down is therefore the actual spare key.

Setting up, and entries

  1. Create the vault

    On first start you choose what the key is made from. Three ways, and they combine:

    • Password — the usual one, and the load-bearing part.
    • Files — any files become part of the key. A holiday photo, an old invoice: something nobody would take for a key.
    • 3 of 3 / 2 of 3 — several files in a fixed order, or any two of them as a fallback. The fallback exists so that one lost file does not cost you the vault.

  2. Optional: bind it to a place

    Under Conditions the whole vault can be bound to where you are standing. After that the key exists only there. You are shown a recovery code once — copy it down before moving on. Without that code and without that place, the vault is shut for good.

  3. Optional: a second vault

    The same file can hold a second, independent vault with its own password. The second slot always exists — even if you never set it up, and an empty slot looks exactly like a full one on disk. So from the outside there is no telling whether a second vault is there.

  4. Add an entry

    A title, a place name in your own words, the note. Optionally coordinates (the GPS button) and up to six photos from the gallery or the camera. All of it sits encrypted in the vault.

  5. Photos with a proof of time

    The Timestamp switch applies only to shots taken with the camera inside the app, and is off by default. With it on, the photo's SHA-256 checksum goes to beattime.live — never the picture. If you are offline, the photo is still saved and the proof marked "pending"; you can fetch it later.

Sealing notes

  1. Turn time capsules on

    Capsules are per vault and off by default. Turn them on under Settings → Security → Time capsules. The notice there names the only price of the feature: opening one needs an internet connection.

  2. Seal a note to a day

    In the entry, flip Seal until a date and pick the moment. On saving, the note's text moves into a capsule; it is not left in the entry as well — a copy beside it would make the whole thing theatre.

  3. Bind a note to a place

    The switch Open only in this place binds that single note to the grid cell you are standing in. This needs no network. Afterwards the place recovery code appears once — it is stored nowhere, because otherwise it would sit beside the lock and make it worthless.

  4. Both at once

    Both switches may be on together. The note then needs the moment and the place, and neither on its own is enough.

  5. Open a sealed note

    The entry says what it is waiting for and how long is left. The button is always available, even beforehand — not out of carelessness: the honest answer comes from the beacons, not from this phone's clock. What the app then tells you:

    • The moment has not come — nothing is wrong; the signature simply does not exist yet.
    • No beacon reachable — the capsule is fine, the phone is offline.
    • This is not the place — the key does not exist here.
    • The envelope does not add up — the one case where something really is wrong.

    Once open, you decide: leave it sealed, or write the text back into the note. The second lifts the lock for good.

Proofs, backups, emergencies

  1. The register of time certificates

    The icon in the header opens every proof in the vault at once, each next to the photo and the entry it belongs to. Search by entry, file name or checksum — the last one is for when somebody hands you a certificate and you are looking for the photo it vouches for.

  2. Back it up

    Settings → Data → Export vault file writes the encrypted file wherever you want it. It is worthless without your keys, so it may go on a stick, into a cloud, into an attachment. The file always contains both slots.

  3. What belongs on paper

    • The vault's recovery code, if you bound it to a place.
    • The recovery code of every place-bound note.
    • With files as a key: which files, and in what order — somewhere that is not the phone.

    A time capsule's recovery code lives in the vault and opens nothing on its own: before the moment it is useless to anyone, because the beacons stay silent. You may still copy it down — then you can reach the note after its opening day even if the vault were lost.

  4. If the phone is gone

    New device, install the app, import the exported file, open it with the same keys. If the vault was bound to a place, go there — or use the recovery code. There is no account to reset, and that is deliberate.

Read on

What the app protects against — and what it does not · Technical description · Frequently asked questions