Everything about your vault, in one place.

What is Kinship Vault

Kinship Vault is an encrypted vault for the things that matter most: identity documents, family paperwork, photos, and now logins, passkeys, and one-time 2FA codes. Everything is sealed on your device with a key that only your device holds. There is no Kinship Vault account, no master password on our side, and no server that stores your vault.

The promise is simple and literal: we cannot see your data. That shapes every feature in this documentation, from how you add a document to how your family recovers the vault if something happens to you.

It runs natively on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Android. The password manager is available today on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and is on the way to Android.

Set up your vault

First launch takes under two minutes. The app walks you through it, but here is what is happening and why each step matters.

1. Create your unlock. Set a PIN and enable Face ID or Touch ID (fingerprint, face, or PIN on Android). This is how you get into the vault day to day. It never leaves the device.
2. Your key is generated on the device. A unique master key is created in your device's secure hardware. It is never transmitted, and we never receive a copy.
3. Write down your recovery passphrase. The app shows you 24 words. This is the one thing that can rebuild your vault from scratch. Write it on paper and store it somewhere safe. See the next article.
4. Add your first document. On iPhone, iPad, or Android, point the camera at a passport or ID and it scans, reads, and seals it. On Mac, drag a PDF or image in.
5. Optional but recommended: set up recovery and backup. Nominate trusted contacts for your Recovery Network, and turn on encrypted backup so a lost phone never means a lost vault.

Your recovery passphrase

At setup, Kinship Vault gives you a 24-word recovery passphrase. Those words are your master key, encoded in a form a human can copy down. Anyone with all 24 words can rebuild your vault; anyone without them cannot.

What to do with it

• Write it on paper, or print the passphrase sheet, and store it where you keep other important papers.
• Do not store it as a screenshot or in another cloud notes app. That undermines the whole model.
• Consider giving a sealed copy to someone you trust, or splitting recovery across your Recovery Network instead.

Unlocking the vault

Day to day you unlock with biometrics or your PIN. The master key is unwrapped by your device's secure hardware only after you authenticate, then it stays in memory just long enough to do the work.

The app auto-locks in the background so an unlocked vault never sits open on a device you set down. Every password fill and every 2FA code is gated by a fresh biometric check, so nothing leaves the vault without you.

Adding documents

How a document gets in depends on the device, but the result is the same: it is encrypted before it ever touches storage.

On iPhone, iPad, or Android

Tap to scan with the camera. The app captures the page, straightens it, and reads the fields on device. You can also import an existing PDF or photo from Files or your photo library.

On Mac

There is no camera-scanning flow on the desktop. Drag a PDF or image onto the window, or pull one in from Photos or Files. Everything else is identical, including the on-device field recognition.

On-device recognition

Kinship Vault reads the documents you already carry. It recognizes the fields across 100+ document types, passports, national IDs, driver's licenses, insurance cards, and more, and files them with the right dates and numbers so you can find them later.

All of this happens on device using the operating system's own text recognition. No page image and no extracted text is ever sent to a server.

Categories & people

Documents organize into categories so a vault of a hundred items stays navigable. You can also create your own custom categories with their own icon and color.

Tag the people a document belongs to, a spouse, a child, a parent, and the app builds a per-person view so you can see everything tied to one family member at a glance. Tapping a tagged person opens their profile with every document and photo connected to them.

Record types

Record types let you store the structured things that are not documents in the usual sense: a software licence, a warranty, a membership, a router's Wi-Fi details, an insurance policy. You define the type once and reuse it.

Give a record type a name, an icon, and a colour, then add the fields that matter to it. Fields can be marked Secret, so sensitive values such as a licence key or a card number stay masked until you choose to reveal them. A Software License type is included as a starting point, and you can create your own for anything else. Leave the fields empty and a record type simply becomes a category you file documents under.

Filled in for you

When you scan or import a document, the app reads it on device, works out what it is, and pre-fills the record's fields with the values it recognized, so you review rather than retype. If the app does not yet have a type for what it recognized, it can offer to create a new record type from that document and keep the extracted fields, so the next one of its kind files itself the same way. Nothing is written to the vault until you confirm it.

Expiry reminders

Because the app reads the dates on your documents, it can watch them for you. Kinship Vault surfaces what is expiring, a passport, a visa, an insurance policy, before it lapses, so a renewal never sneaks up on you. You do not set these by hand; they come from the fields the app already recognized.

The photo vault

The encrypted photo vault holds the images you would not want in your camera roll or a cloud album: documents of record, sensitive family photos, anything private. Photos are encrypted with the same key that seals your documents, organized into albums, and never leave the device unencrypted.

On Android, the photo vault includes the option to hide vaulted images from the system gallery entirely.

Overview

Kinship Vault includes a full password manager on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Store logins, passkeys, and one-time 2FA codes, all end-to-end encrypted with the same key that seals your documents, and synced across your Apple devices.

There is no separate account and no second master password to reset. Passwords are part of Vault Pro, so if you already have a plan, there is nothing extra to buy. The password manager is on the way to Android; everything else in the app is already there.

Turn on AutoFill

Enable Kinship Vault as your system AutoFill provider once, and it fills logins and passkeys everywhere, in your browser and inside apps.

On iPhone or iPad

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Go to General → AutoFill & Passwords.
3. Turn on Kinship Vault as a provider.

On a Mac

1. Open System Settings.
2. Go to the passwords AutoFill options.
3. Enable Kinship Vault there.

Every fill is unlocked with Face ID or Touch ID, so nothing is filled without you. Passkeys sign you in the same way, with no password to type.

Browser extension

The Kinship Vault browser extension adds one-click fill and save to your desktop browsers. On a Mac it works in Chrome, Edge, Brave, Firefox, and Safari.

On iPhone and iPad you usually do not need the extension: once Kinship Vault is your AutoFill provider, it already fills your logins in every browser and app, Chrome included, unlocked with Face ID or Touch ID (see Turn on AutoFill). On iOS the extension itself is a Safari feature. Either way, everything pairs with the Kinship Vault app already on your device, so there is no separate account and no second master password.

Turn it on

1. In the Kinship Vault app, open Settings → Passwords → Browser Extensions and install the connector for your browser.
2. Add the extension to your browser. For Chrome, Brave, and Edge, get it from the Chrome Web Store. In Safari it is built into the Kinship Vault app, so there is nothing extra to install.
3. Pin the extension so it is one click away when you sign in.

Filling a login

On a sign-in page, the extension finds the login fields and shows the logins saved for that site. Pick one, approve with Face ID or Touch ID, and it fills. The matching one-time (2FA) code fills too when you have one saved.

Saving a login

When you sign up or change a password, the extension offers to save it. The saved login is staged in the app for your review, encrypted at rest, and only joins your vault after you confirm it. A built-in generator can create a strong, unique password right in the form.

Passkeys

Passkeys replace passwords with a key pair that cannot be phished or reused. Kinship Vault can create and store passkeys and sign you in with them, gated by the same biometric check as everything else. Where a site supports passkeys, you get a tap-and-you're-in experience with no password to remember or leak.

2FA and one-time codes

Store your time-based one-time (TOTP) 2FA codes right next to the login they protect. When you fill a password, the matching 6-digit code is ready too, so you are not juggling a separate authenticator app. The secrets that generate those codes are encrypted in the vault like everything else.

Password generator

Create strong, unique passwords on the spot, with control over length and character sets. New logins get a generated password by default so you are not reusing an old one. Strength is measured with a real strength estimator, not a naive length check, so the feedback reflects how a password would actually hold up.

Security Checkup

Security Checkup is a private, on-device review of your logins. It scores them out of 100 and groups what to fix first: weak, reused, old, and, if you allow an online check, breached passwords, each with a clear next step.

How the breach check protects you

The breach check uses k-anonymity. A full password is never sent anywhere; only a short, partial hash prefix is used to look up matches. The service that answers never sees your password or even its full hash.

How recovery works

Because we never hold your key, recovery cannot go through us. Instead, Kinship Vault gives you up to three independent ways back in. Set up at least one, ideally two.

Recovery Network (shards)

The Recovery Network splits your recovery key into 5 pieces and shares them with people you trust. Any 3 of the 5 reconstruct your vault. No single person, including you, can unlock it alone from one shard.

Each shard can be handed over three ways:

• Shown as a QR code to scan directly.
• Exported as a small file.
• Printed as a PDF "shard card" to keep on paper.

Dead Man's Switch

The Dead Man's Switch is an optional, inactivity-triggered handoff. If you do not open the app for a number of days you configure (default 365, with a 30-day grace period), a final shard is released to the contacts you nominated, allowing them to access your vault. You can disable or extend it any time from Settings.

Emergency Mode

Emergency Mode lets you reach a chosen subset of your vault, the documents a first responder or family member might need, without unlocking everything. It is designed to be calm and ready in a crisis while keeping the rest of your vault sealed. It is available on both Apple devices and Android.

Encrypted backup

Backup is optional and off until you turn it on. When enabled, your backup file is fully encrypted on your device before it leaves. It goes to your own iCloud on Apple devices, or your own Google Drive on Android. Apple and Google see only encrypted bytes; your decryption key never leaves your device and is never uploaded.

Push a backup whenever you add or edit documents, so a lost or replaced device never means a lost vault.

Link a new device

To run the same vault on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac, pair them directly. The key transfers device to device through an on-screen QR code. Nothing routes through our servers. Setup takes under a minute.

1. On the device that already holds your vault, open Settings → Unlock PIN & Recovery → Link a New Device.
2. Authenticate with Face ID or Touch ID. A QR appears with a 60-second countdown. On iPhone or iPad, iOS blocks that QR from screenshots and screen recording. On a Mac it cannot, so the app warns you on screen and you should not capture it.
3. On the new device, open Kinship Vault and choose Bring My Vault. It is on the welcome screen on a fresh install, or in the Recovery row of the unlock screen if you already have something set up.
4. Point the new device's camera at the QR. An iPad uses its camera; a Mac uses its built-in camera, so hold the first device up to the screen. The key transfers through that code.
5. The new device wraps the key in its own secure hardware and unlocks the same vault.

Apple ↔ Android

There is no live sync or pairing between Apple devices and Android today. Each is its own self-contained vault. To move documents across, use an encrypted export, or set up a Recovery Network / recovery passphrase and restore on the other device. On Android, backups go to your own Google Drive rather than iCloud.

iPhone & iPad

The full experience: camera document scanning, the encrypted photo vault, passwords and passkeys with system AutoFill, Recovery Network, Emergency Mode, and the Dead Man's Switch. This is the home base for setting up recovery.

Mac

A real, native Mac app, not a stretched iPad app. It follows the desktop conventions, supports light and dark, and shares one vault with your iPhone and iPad on the same Apple Account.

• Adding documents: drag a PDF or image in, or import from Photos or Files. No camera-scanning flow.
• Unlocking: Touch ID, your Mac login password, or your PIN.
• Camera use: only for reading the pairing QR from another device.
• Not on Mac by design: the Dead Man's Switch (needs reliable long-term reminders).

See the Mac page for more.

Android

A native Android app with the same on-device encryption, camera scanning, Recovery Network, Emergency Mode, and encrypted photo vault. The key is wrapped by the Android Keystore. Backups go to your own Google Drive. The password manager is on the way; everything else is here today.

The Android app is a separate purchase through Google Play. See the Android page.

The encryption model

Four properties define how Kinship Vault protects your data:

• The key is born on your device. Your master key is generated locally and never transmitted.
• It is sealed in hardware. The key is wrapped by the device's secure hardware, the Secure Enclave on Apple devices, the Android Keystore on Android.
• Every document gets its own key. Items are individually encrypted, so nothing shares one master lock.
• No key ever leaves your device. Not in a backup, not to us, not to Apple or Google. Backups carry only encrypted bytes.

Zero-knowledge, literally

There is no Kinship Vault server that holds your vault, and no account whose password we could reset. We never receive your documents or your decryption key. "We can't see your data" is not a policy we promise to keep; it is an architecture that leaves us no way to break it.

The tradeoff is honest: if you lose every recovery path, we cannot help, because we were never able to. See recovery to make sure that never happens.

Strict Offline mode

Strict Offline mode turns off every optional network touch, including the online breach check in Security Checkup. The on-device checks, weak, reused, and old passwords, still run, because they never needed the network in the first place. Choose it when you want a vault that provably makes no outbound calls at all.

Permissions we request

Everything is processed entirely on your device. We collect no analytics, no telemetry, and no usage data. See the full Privacy Policy.

Plans & pricing

Vault Pro unlocks the full app, including the password manager on Apple devices. The prices are the same on the App Store and Google Play:

One purchase, every Apple device

On Apple, it is a single universal purchase. A subscription or Lifetime Premium carries across iPhone, iPad, and Mac on the same Apple Account, download it on the Mac and it is already unlocked. If your Mac does not recognize the purchase, open the App Store app, choose Store → Reload Page, and make sure you are signed in with the same Apple Account.

Manage your subscription

On iPhone or iPad

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap your name at the top.
3. Tap Subscriptions.
4. Select Kinship Vault to manage or cancel.

On a Mac

1. Open the App Store app.
2. Click your name in the bottom-left corner.
3. Click Account Settings, then find Subscriptions and click Manage.
4. Select Kinship Vault.

On Android

1. Open the Google Play Store app.
2. Tap your profile icon at the top right.
3. Tap Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions.
4. Select Kinship Vault.

On iPhone, iPad, and Mac you are managing the same Apple subscription, cancelling in one place cancels it everywhere. The Android subscription is billed by Google, separately.

Common issues

My Mac doesn't recognize my purchase

Open the App Store app, choose Store → Reload Page, and confirm you are signed in with the same Apple Account you bought it on.

AutoFill isn't offering my passwords

Confirm Kinship Vault is enabled as an AutoFill provider in system settings (see Turn on AutoFill). Each fill still requires a fresh Face ID or Touch ID check, so approve the prompt when it appears.

The breach check isn't running

If you are in Strict Offline mode, the online breach check is intentionally disabled. The weak, reused, and old checks still run on device.

I can't scan the pairing QR on my Mac

A Mac with no camera cannot scan it, and there is no code-paste fallback by design. Use your recovery passphrase or Recovery Network on that machine.

I've lost my phone

Recover on a new device with your recovery passphrase, by collecting 3 of 5 shards from your trusted contacts, or, if enabled, via the Dead Man's Switch.

Contact & bugs

Found a bug or stuck on something the docs don't cover? Email us with your OS version, device model, what you were trying to do, and what happened instead. We read every message and aim to reply within 48 hours.