User Key, Recovery & Devices

What it is: Your account identity is a User Key, created on your first device and stored in the operating system's secure storage (Keychain on macOS/iOS). It is not tied to any single device — it's tied to you.

Two recovery keys matter, and they do different jobs:

• User Recovery Key — restores your account identity on a new device. Shown once during onboarding.

• Vault Recovery Key — restores access to one specific vault if you forget its password. Each vault has its own.

Why it matters: Because the server holds no keys, these recovery keys are the only way back in. There is no "reset by email" that Oten can perform.

Good to know:

• Adding a device: sign in with the same Oten account, enter your User Recovery Key, and the app pulls your vault list. Open each vault with its password.

• Sync: encrypted blobs sync via Oten Cloud with conflict-aware versioning. Only ciphertext moves; keys never do.

• Vault key storage choice (at vault creation): you pick Convenience (the vault key is not stored, so resets rely on your keys) or Security (you store and manage the vault key yourself). Password reset then follows whichever choice you made.

• Transfer Drive: you can move or reassign Drive ownership to another device or account while your Vault data stays isolated.

Store your User Recovery Key and each Vault Recovery Key separately from the device — a password manager or a physical safe. Losing a password and its recovery key means that data is gone for good.