What Underlock can’t do
Better you hear it from us. Here’s where Underlock’s protection stops, and what you can do about each limit.
On your iPhone
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Spyware or a hacked iPhone can see an open vault.
What you can do: keep iOS up to date. Lock your vault when you’re done. By default, your vault locks the moment you leave Underlock.
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Someone who has your iPhone and can break into it can guess simple patterns.
What you can do: use a long pattern with several turns, or a passphrase, which holds out longest.
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Someone who watches you draw, or reads the smudges on your screen, can learn your pattern.
What you can do: draw where nobody can watch, turn off Show pattern trail in App settings, and wipe your screen now and then.
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With Face ID on in a vault, anyone whose face is set up on this iPhone can open that vault.
What you can do: turn on Face ID only if every face set up on this iPhone is yours.
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Someone can photograph your screen with another phone. Anything you share or export has left the vault.
What you can do: share only what you’re happy for others to keep. By default, Underlock removes a photo’s location when you share it.
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People can see that Underlock is on your iPhone. Without your pattern, though, all they’d find is the pattern screen.
What you can do: on iOS 18 or later, touch and hold the Underlock icon, tap Require Face ID, then Hide and Require Face ID, then Hide App. Underlock moves to a locked Hidden folder in App Library, though the Settings app still lists Underlock.
Your pattern and your 12 words
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Forget both your pattern and your recovery phrase, and nobody can get your files back. Not even us.
What you can do: keep the paper with your 12 words somewhere safe. If you lose the paper but still know your pattern, open your vault. Then choose Show recovery phrase in Settings.
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A vault’s 12 words open that vault for whoever has them.
What you can do: don’t photograph the words or save them in another app. If you think someone saw the words, make a new phrase in Settings. The old phrase stops working.
More vaults and the decoy pattern
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Someone who forces you to open Underlock sees the vault you open.
What you can do: keep a vault you’d be comfortable showing.
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The decoy pattern erases the other vaults on your iPhone. Erased vaults are gone for good.
Also worth knowing
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Underlock adds its own lock on top of your iPhone’s lock. Underlock’s lock doesn’t replace your iPhone’s.
What you can do: use a strong iPhone passcode as well. Your passcode guards everything else on your phone.
What Underlock does protect
Your files are encrypted on your phone before they’re saved. We never receive your files, your pattern or your keys. And wrong tries never erase your files.
Know the limits. Then decide.
Free for one vault, with no file limit. No account, no email.
For iPhone with iOS 17 or later.