Sempere
Guide contents

Best practices

Moving to a new device

Bring your vault to a new iPad, iPhone or Mac, with or without the old one, and retire the old one cleanly.

Your notes live in the vault, not in one device. A new device needs two things: a way to reach the vault (a sync target it shares with your other devices, or a backup), and its own key, which it gets by joining.

With the old device at hand

  1. On the new device, open the vault from its sync target: Open Vault… and the .sempere folder in iCloud Drive or another folder (leave Keep syncing with this folder on), or Open from WebDAV….
  2. On the unlock screen, Join This Device… ▸ Ask to Join.
  3. On the old device (if it manages devices), Settings ▸ Sync & Devices ▸ Devices ▸ Add Device…, type the six words, Approve; then type the six words it shows back on the new device.
  4. If the old device managed devices, make the new one home: on the old device, touch and hold the new device in the list, Make Home….
  5. Retire the old device (below).

The full steps: Add a second device.

The vault has no sync target yet? Add one on the old device first (Sync Targets… ▸ Add Folder…, for example in iCloud Drive), so the new device has something to open and the request to join has a way to travel.

Without the old device

You need the recovery kit (or the passphrase copy) and a copy of the vault: a sync target, or a backup. On the new device, open the vault (or Restore from Backup…), then Take Over with Recovery Kit… on the unlock screen. Uncheck the old device. The new device manages devices from then on. See Replace a lost or broken device.

Settings and the rest

  • If you use settings sync, turn on Settings ▸ Sync & Devices ▸ Sync Settings with This Vault on the new device.
  • Quick voice notes, Require Face ID to Open, the backup folder and backups’ reminder are per device: set them up again.
  • Handwriting recognition and transcripts are stored in the notes, so search works as soon as the notes have arrived.

Retiring the old device

  • On the device that manages devices, remove the old one (Remove… in the device list).
  • On the old device, Delete from This Device… on the welcome screen deletes its copy and its key for the vault. Or erase the device.