The nine-word recovery phrase
The only key that exists outside your iPhone is the one you write down.
In short
When you create a vault, Latent shows you nine words and asks you to retype two of them. Those words can unlock the vault if you forget your pattern, and they restore it on a new iPhone. Latent never stores them, so nobody — including us — can recover a vault without them.
Key takeaways
- Shown once, at vault creation, then verified.
- Needed to restore a vault on a new device.
- There is no recovery without it. That is by design.
Why nine words and not an email reset
An email reset means someone, somewhere, can open your vault without your pattern. That someone is the company running the server, and anyone who gains access to it. Latent has no account and no server, so it has nothing to reset — and nobody to be compromised.
The phrase is the trade-off made visible: you hold the only spare key.
New iPhone
Nine-word phrase
known only to you
Vault restored
How it is checked
A phrase you never wrote down is worse than no phrase, because it gives false confidence. So after showing the nine words, Latent asks you to type two of them back before the vault is created.
Where to keep it
- On paper, somewhere you would look for important documents.
- In a password manager you already trust.
- Not in a screenshot inside the Photos app — that is precisely the place a vault exists to protect.