Backup & recovery
Because Sablefort uses a zero-knowledge model, continuity is a shared responsibility: we keep your encrypted vaults highly available and redundant on our side, and you keep the means to get back in if something happens to a device or a password. This page covers exporting an encrypted backup, organization recovery, and what to do if a master password is lost.
Do you need a backup?
Your vaults already sync across every device and are stored redundantly by Sablefort, so a lost or broken laptop does not lose your data — you sign in on another device and your vaults are there. A manual backup is still worth keeping for two cases: business-continuity requirements, and protection against accidental bulk deletion. Treat a backup as an extra copy, not as your primary access.
Export an encrypted backup
An encrypted export produces a file that stays protected by a passphrase you choose, so the backup itself is never plaintext at rest.
- In the desktop app, open Settings → Export.
- Choose the vaults to include (you can only export vaults you have access to).
- Select Encrypted archive as the format.
- Set a strong, unique export passphrase. This is separate from your master password and is required to open the archive.
- Save the file somewhere durable and access-controlled.
Organizations can restrict who may export at all under Policies; see Deploy to your team. A plaintext export format may also be offered for one-time migrations, but it should be generated only when strictly necessary and destroyed immediately after use.
Restoring from a backup
To restore, open Settings → Import, select the encrypted archive, and enter its passphrase. Imported items are added to the vaults you choose. Review for duplicates after a restore, since importing does not overwrite existing items by default.
Organization recovery
For teams, the resilient unit is the vault, not any single person. As long as a vault has more than one member, losing one member's access never strands the vault — the remaining members still have it, and an administrator can re-grant access to a replacement. Build this in deliberately:
- Maintain at least two organization owners at all times.
- Never leave a critical vault with a single member. Add a backup member or a team.
- Enable admin-assisted recovery for the org so administrators can help re-provision a member who loses access.
- Keep an encrypted backup of business-critical vaults as a last resort.
With admin-assisted recovery enabled, an administrator can start a recovery for a member. The member sets a new master password on their device and regains access to the vaults they are entitled to, without the administrator ever seeing plaintext in the process.
If a master password is lost
This is the most important thing to understand about a zero-knowledge system: there is no self-service master-password reset. Sablefort never receives your master password, so we cannot look it up or reset it for you. What happens next depends on your setup:
| Situation | Path back in |
|---|---|
| You're in an org with admin-assisted recovery | Contact your administrator to start a recovery. You set a new master password and regain your entitled vaults. |
| You have an encrypted backup | Set up a fresh account, then import the archive with its export passphrase. |
| Shared vaults with other members | The data is not lost — other members still have it and can re-share once you're back in. |
| Individual account, no backup, no other members | Data encrypted only under that password cannot be recovered by anyone, including Sablefort. |
Recommended routine
- Two or more org owners, reviewed quarterly.
- No single-member critical vaults.
- Admin-assisted recovery enabled org-wide.
- A periodic encrypted backup of business-critical vaults, stored access-controlled, with its passphrase kept separately.