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Advanced Features · 1 min read

Use a Duress Passcode

A second passcode that erases your other vaults and opens an empty one.

A duress passcode is a second passcode for when someone forces you to unlock. HypaVault opens an empty vault and, in the same silent step, erases every other vault on the phone.

If someone forces you to unlock, enter the duress passcode. It unlocks like normal, and nothing on screen looks different.

  • In one silent step, every other vault on the phone is erased: their keys are destroyed, so their files can never be decrypted again. The files are then deleted in the background.
  • An empty vault opens, set aside for this when you turned the duress passcode on, with no sign that duress was used.
  • A backup and its recovery phrase bring an erased vault back.

Before you turn it on, back up every vault, save the files somewhere off the phone and keep each recovery phrase on paper. Without a backup, an erased vault is gone for good.

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Questions About This Task

A second passcode that erases your other vaults and opens an empty one.

  1. Not on the phone. The other vaults' keys are destroyed, so their files can never be decrypted again, and only a backup and its recovery phrase bring a vault back.

    Read the Help Article

  2. No. It erases vaults on the phone, and backups you made earlier aren't affected.

  3. That depends on where you live. Destroying data may have legal consequences, for example if you're under a legal duty to preserve it, and you're responsible for using it lawfully.