Secure notes and voice memos

Notes

Secure notes are sealed like everything else in the vault. Names, notes and the fields of a record are sealed with your vault key too, not just the photos.

That covers the title and the body, so the list of your notes reads as nothing to anyone without the key. Use a note for things that are words, not pictures: a journal entry, a list of questions for a doctor, the story behind a photo in the same stack.

Writing one

1. Tap the plus button in your vault and choose New Note.
2. Write. Format the text if you like.
3. Tap Save. A note is sealed when you tap Save, and a draft you haven’t saved is kept if the vault locks while you write.

Voice memos

Voice memos record straight into the vault, and only while the recording screen is open.

Speaking is faster than typing when your hands are busy or the thought is long. A voice memo is sealed like a photo and sits in the vault beside everything else.

Recording one

1. Tap the plus button in your vault and choose Voice Memo.
2. Tap Record, and speak.
3. Tap Stop and Seal. The memo appears in your vault, ready to play.

Sealed records sound only while the voice memo screen is open, and never in the background.

So the microphone is only ever on while you can see the recording screen. Leaving the app in the middle of a voice memo ends the recording and seals it, so it isn’t lost. A voice memo shorter than one second is treated as an accidental tap and isn’t kept.

How this compares with a locked note

Notes on the phone can lock a note too, and for many people that is enough.

In Notes you can lock a note with your iPhone passcode or with a password only for Notes, and Apple says both options use end-to-end encryption for iCloud accounts. Apple says you can’t lock a note that has tags, PDFs, audio, video, or Keynote, Pages or Numbers documents, or a note that you share with someone else. If you forget a notes password, Apple can’t help you open the notes you locked with it, and resetting the password does not open them either.

A vault note works differently. It lives behind the vault’s own lock, beside your photos and records, and it is sealed with your vault key, so tags, scans and shared notes are not a problem. If you forget your passcode, your recovery key lets you set a new one.

Where they go

Backup carries your photos, videos and documents, your stacks, your notes and your records. Files, names, notes and record fields are encrypted on your iPhone before they are uploaded, so iCloud receives only ciphertext.

In a decoy vault, the same rule as for photos applies. Anything added while the decoy vault is open, such as photos, files, notes, records, stacks and camera shots, is saved in the decoy vault and not in your real one.

Free or Pro

On the free plan you can add photos. Videos, documents, notes and records need Sealed Pro. Sealed Pro lifts the photo limit and adds, among other things, videos, documents, notes, records, the private camera, voice memos, wireless transfer, Space Saver, the duplicate finder and video trimming.

Where Sealed helps, and where it doesn’t

It helps keep words and voices as private as your photos, in the same place, under the same key. Names, notes and the fields of a record are sealed with your vault key too, not just the photos.

It doesn’t do these things:

• Record in the background. Sealed records sound only while the voice memo screen is open, and never in the background.
• Sync with the Notes app. A vault note stays in the vault. Secure notes are sealed like everything else in the vault.
• Protect a copy you export or paste elsewhere. Your files never leave your iPhone unless you turn on iCloud backup or export them yourself.
• Come with the free plan. On the free plan you can add photos. Videos, documents, notes and records need Sealed Pro.
• Replace a record for numbers. Logins and cards fit better as records.