What if I forget my encryption passphrase?

We can’t recover it. That’s a hard answer, so here’s the honest reasoning behind it.

Harbor’s encryption is zero-knowledge: your passphrase never leaves your devices, and our servers store only sealed data they cannot read. There is no reset link, no support override, no back door. A door we could open for you would be a door someone else could open too — and then the encryption would be theater.

If the passphrase is gone, notes encrypted with it stay unreadable. To everyone, including us.

The rest of your account is untouched: unencrypted notes, search, sync, and sign-in all keep working. Your account password and your encryption passphrase are separate things — forgetting one doesn’t affect the other.

What we recommend:

1. Store the passphrase in a password manager — 1Password, iCloud Keychain, whatever you trust — the day you set it.
2. Expect to forget it. Day to day you’ll unlock with Touch ID or Face ID and rarely type the passphrase, which is exactly how passphrases slip away. A copy somewhere safe matters more than a memorable phrase.
3. If you think it’s been exposed, rotate it — moving to a new passphrase is quick while you still know the old one.

We know “no recovery” sounds severe. It’s the price of a real lock — and the reason you can trust the lock at all. If we could rescue you, so could a subpoena, a hacker, or a rogue employee. We’d rather tell you the truth up front.