Sovereign Vault · for Mac
A local-only vault for the files you would rather not leave sitting in plaintext. No cloud, no account, no subscription.
Inside an unlocked vault — entries stay masked until you reveal them, one at a time.
How it works
Everything in the vault is encrypted under a single 256-bit Vault Master Key, generated once and never written to disk in the clear — it exists only in memory for the duration of an unlocked session. That key is unlocked two independent ways: a 4-word passphrase for everyday use, combined with a secret bound to this specific device, or a master password that stands alone as your recovery key. Either path produces the same key; neither one by itself is enough to reconstruct it.
Repeated wrong attempts trigger lockouts that grow longer each time. Keep going past that, and the vault stops locking and destroys its keys instead. "Destroys" means deleting the handful of small key-material entries in secure storage, not overwriting the whole disk: without those few kilobytes, the ciphertext left behind is permanently unreadable, by anyone, including us. Authenticating with the master password clears an active lockout immediately, so a legitimate owner who triggers their own lockout isn't stuck waiting it out.
| Scenario | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Laptop is lost, stolen, or accessed by someone without your passphrase or master password | Defended |
| Vault files copied to another machine or a USB drive | Defended |
| Repeated passphrase guesses through the app's own unlock screen | Defended |
| Someone who already knows your passphrase or master password | Not defended |
| Malware already running on your unlocked session | Not defended |
Full technical detail — Argon2id parameters, the physical-portability model, and the one known hardening gap we're tracking (a software-enforced lockout counter, not yet TPM-anchored) — is written up in the security architecture document.
A vault can be packaged into a single encrypted file, a sealed export protected by its own passphrase, and sent anywhere: email, cloud storage, a USB stick. Whatever carries it only ever sees ciphertext.
Share the passphrase a different way, by phone or in person. The email carries the lock, never the key, so anyone who intercepts only one of the two gets nothing.
The fine print
Effective date: 2026
Sovereign Vault collects no personal data, in any form, ever — this isn't a policy choice sitting on top of the app, it's a consequence of how it's built.
If this policy changes, the update will be posted at this same URL with a new effective date.
Most questions answer themselves:
Anything else — a bug, a crash, a question this page doesn't cover: mnemomemory@proton.me
Effective date: 2026
This is a license, not a sale. Alara Apps grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use Sovereign Vault on devices you own or control, subject to Apple's Licensed Application End User License Agreement and the terms below.
Questions about this agreement: mnemomemory@proton.me
$14.99 once. No account, no subscription.
Get Sovereign Vault on the Mac App Store