Vaults and folders
How vaults, folders and tags sort your things, why where a thing lives never changes its lock, and what the Trash keeps.
The short version is on What Vando is.
An example
Personal starts new things at Just me
Streaming Netflix, Disney+ (Easy)
Bank your bank login (Fort Knox)
Work starts new things at Just me
acme
dev STRIPE_KEY, PORT (Easy)
prod STRIPE_KEY, DB_URL (Fort Knox)Two vaults, folders inside them, and each thing with its own lock.
Vaults
A vault is a named place with a starting level for new things. You start with Personal and Work, and can add more (an import can make one named after your old app). Changing a vault’s starting level changes only what is added from then on: the things already in it keep their locks. If a vault’s starting level is lowered, you get an email and a notification, so a change you didn’t make doesn’t go unnoticed.
Folders
Folders sit inside a vault, up to 14 deep. A thing lives in exactly one place. A folder moves within its vault; to move a folder’s things to another vault, move the things.
Folders are also how your computer names things: Work/acme/dev is a path in your vault, and vando run --folder Work/acme/dev -- pnpm dev asks for everything directly in that folder, not its subfolders. A whole project.
Where a thing lives never changes its lock
Moving a thing, renaming its folder, putting it in another vault: the lock stays exactly as it was. Netflix in your Bank folder is still Easy; your bank login moved to Streaming is still Fort Knox.
Moving costs what the lock costs. An Easy thing moves freely. A Just me thing needs your phone unlocked. A Fort Knox thing needs your fingerprint and your key. Renaming or moving a folder counts as moving everything in it, so tidying a folder that holds Fort Knox things takes a key tap. Moving many things at once is one approval at the strictest level among them, not one per thing.
Changing the lock of many things at once isn’t in this version: one by one for now. coming
Tags
Tags are labels for finding things (“bank”, “client-x”). Adding one opens nothing, whatever the thing’s lock, and search finds tags without a prompt. Tags and folder names show whenever your vault is open. A tag never changes what a thing needs to open.
What Vando’s server sees
Vault names, folder names and tags are locked on your phone before they leave it. The server never sees a name. It does see the shape: how many folders, what is inside what, when you move things, and the level of each thing, so it could guess that a folder of Fort Knox things is prod. If a folder looks wrong (two things with the same name in one place, a move your phone can’t confirm), the phone shows it as a problem to fix and hands nothing out by that name until you do.
The Trash
Deleting moves a thing to the Trash for 30 days, then it is deleted for good. Delete now removes it at once.
- Moving something to the Trash takes the same approval as opening it. A folder goes with everything in it, with one approval at the strictest level inside.
- When something above Easy goes to the Trash, you get an email and a notification.
- A thing in the Trash fills nowhere and can’t be given to a program. It still opens in the Trash screen, through its own lock, so you can look before you restore it.
- Restore puts it back where it was.
- While a recovery runs, nothing in the Trash is deleted for good, and the 30 days pause: someone who trashed your things with your phone and its PIN can’t empty the Trash during your 48 hours.
What the Trash can’t do: someone with your phone and its PIN can still empty it outside a recovery. The Trash protects you from your own mistakes.
Last verified
The four levels
What Easy, Just me, Two devices and Fort Knox each ask for, who they keep out, and how a thing’s level shapes everything else, from autofill to what a program can be given.
Devices: who holds, who asks
Which of your devices hold the keys to your vault, which only ask, and what happens when you add a phone, add a security key or cut a device off.