Your recovery key

A recovery key is a set of words that opens your pouch on its own, with your Apple Account but without the pouch password or another Mac. It’s optional, and Carriel never makes one unless you ask.

Do you need one?

• If you have a pouch password, yes. Without a recovery key, a forgotten password and no Mac that still opens your pouch means nobody can open it.
• If you don’t, your pouch opens on any Mac signed in to your Apple Account with iCloud Keychain on. A recovery key is a second way in, if iCloud Keychain is ever reset.

Make one

1. Open Settings › Security in the Carriel window, and choose Make a Recovery Key….
2. Confirm with Touch ID.
3. Carriel shows the words once, in its own panel. Write them down on paper and keep them somewhere safe that isn’t one of your Macs.

Carriel doesn’t keep the words, so it can’t show them again. If you lose them, make a new recovery key.

Use it

• On a new Mac, when your pouch has a password and you don’t remember it.
• When you’ve forgotten your pouch password and no Mac opens your pouch any more. The recovery key opens it, and you then set a new password.

Keep it like what it protects

Your recovery key opens everything in your pouch. Anyone who finds the words and can sign in to your Apple Account could open it, so keep them as carefully as the things inside.