Moving house: the papers and photos you can’t lose

Two weeks before: the paper folder

The folder with your lease and the deposit receipt is the first thing that goes missing in a move. Scan it before it goes in a box.

1. Make a stack called “Move”. Add sub-stacks for the old place and the new one. Stacks and sub-stacks keep your vault organized.
2. Scan as you go. Lease, deposit receipt, the inventory you signed at the start, the mover’s quote, utility account letters. Sealed scans with Apple’s own document scanner, which finds the edges of the page, straightens it and captures several pages in a row, and Sealed turns the pages into one PDF in your vault.
3. Bring in the PDFs that came by email. You can add photos from Photos, files from Files, and items from the share sheet of other apps. A PDF or other file that is not a photo, video or audio file becomes a document in the vault, with a thumbnail that is sealed too, and you find it under Documents.
4. Carry the paper folder yourself on the day, in the bag that stays with you, not in the van.

Moving day morning: the old place

The room-by-room photos for the deposit are the same as on move-in day, and the renting page has that walk-through. Add three things a move needs on top.

1. The meters, close enough to read, for the final bills. The private camera shoots straight into the vault. The private camera is part of Sealed Pro.
2. The keys you hand back, laid out on a table, and the message or receipt that confirms the handover.
3. Anything fragile or valuable before the movers wrap it, so damage on the way is easy to show.

Moving day evening: the new place

• Save the new Wi-Fi as a record, so the router’s sticker stays on the router. A Wi-Fi record can show a QR code that other phones scan to join the network.
• Scan the new lease and the keys receipt.
• Photograph the meters again for the opening readings.

The weeks after

• Account numbers for the new energy, water and internet accounts go into records. Records keep logins, 2FA codes, credit cards, bank accounts, IDs and passports, Wi-Fi networks, recovery codes, license keys, contacts and custom fields.
• Change-of-address letters go into the “new place” sub-stack.
• Delete nothing until the deposit and the final bills are settled. A mistake inside the vault has a short way back. Recently Deleted keeps anything you remove for 30 days before it is gone for good.

If the boxes, or the phone, go missing

A move is when phones get left on top of boxes. The vault home shows when you last backed up, or says plainly that your vault is only on this iPhone. The first time you save your recovery key, Sealed also turns on iCloud Backup, which is free. If it does disappear, the lost iPhone page takes it from there.

Where Sealed helps, and where it doesn’t

It helps keep the move’s papers and photos in one place, away from the camera roll. Stacks and sub-stacks keep your vault organized. The private camera shoots straight into the vault.

It helps undo a delete. Recently Deleted keeps anything you remove for 30 days before it is gone for good.

It doesn’t keep a spare copy for you. Lose the phone and the recovery key together, and the scans go with them. Backup goes to your own iCloud account, not to a server of ours. The recovery key is the only way to decrypt an iCloud backup on a new iPhone.

It doesn’t scan or shoot on the free plan. On the free plan you can add photos. Videos, documents, notes and records need Sealed Pro. The private camera is part of Sealed Pro.