01 Getting started ~10 minutes

The First Ten Minutes

How to organise years of scanned documents

Set up the vault, drop in a pile of scans, and let the machine do the filing.

I scanned everything during lockdown and now there are four hundred files called scan_0043.pdf. I know it's all there. I just can't find any of it.

— the situation this app was built for

  • Choose a master passwordIt encrypts the vault on your own disk. Nobody can reset it, because nobody else holds a copy.
  • Save the recovery keyShown once, at setup. Put it somewhere that is not this laptop.
  • Drop in the pileVault Home → Import Documents. No need to sort first — that is the job you are handing over.

The one step people skip

Lose both the password and the recovery key and the documents stay encrypted forever. There is no support line that can undo that — which is the same reason nobody else can read them.

A file enters the vault: it is read, understood, then encrypted, all on your own machine scan_0043.pdf A photo of a page YOU DROP IN ON YOUR MACHINE Reads the page Turns the picture into text it can actually search Picks out details Type, provider, dates, amounts, who it belongs to Locked away Encrypted with your master password NONE OF THIS LEAVES YOUR COMPUTER
Every import runs the same three passes. The reading and the understanding both happen locally, using models on your own disk — there is no upload step in this diagram because there isn't one in the app.

What comes back

25 pagesRead in full on the free plan. Past that, files still import and stay safe.
0 uploadsReading and understanding both happen on your machine.
2 things to keepYour master password, and the recovery key — stored apart.

Each document arrives with its type guessed, its provider named and its dates pulled out — so an expiry date stops being text and becomes an alert. The app also says where each detail came from: read on your desktop, or confirmed by you. Only a person produces the second one.

Vault Home→ Import Documents→ select files→ watch the cards fill in

On the free plan

The first 25 pages get the full treatment. Past that, documents still import and stay safe — the deeper reading pauses until you add a licence, and the app tells you exactly which ones are waiting.