A safe setup in ten minutes

Nobody can rescue your notes for you, so these habits matter.

1. Print the recovery kit when you create the vault, and put it somewhere safe, away from your devices. Delete the PDF afterward. It cannot be printed later; if you missed it, replace it. → The recovery kit
2. Give the vault a sync target, such as a shared folder in iCloud Drive or a WebDAV server, so your other devices can open it. → Where to keep your vault
3. Join your other devices, so each has its own key and a lost one can be removed alone. → Add a second device
4. Turn on backups (Back Up To) to another drive or provider, with Remind Me so you hear when they stop. Sync is not a backup. → Backup strategy
5. Verify the backup now and then (Verify Backup), and once try reading it with your kit. → Use your recovery kit
6. Know what to do if a device is lost, before it happens: which device manages devices, and where the kit is. → If a device is lost

Where to keep the recovery kit

On paper, in an envelope labeled with the vault’s name, at home or with someone you trust, away from your devices. Not as a PDF in cloud storage, email or photos. Destroy an old kit when you replace it. See The recovery kit.

Choosing sync targets, in one line each

• None: simple and private, but the vault is only on one device; back it up.
• iCloud Drive: the easy choice for iPad, iPhone and Mac on one Apple Account.
• A NAS share or another folder: fine at home; changes wait on the device while it is out of reach.
• WebDAV: works away from home with a server you run, and without iCloud.
• Two of them: one device that syncs with both keeps both current.