Vaultine for Shared Devices — Private Files on a Family Computer

Situations this covers

—A family laptop where everyone uses the same login, or knows each other's password anyway.

—Tax returns, medical letters and ID scans on a computer the whole household uses.

—A phone you hand to a child to play a game, or to a friend to look at one photo.

—A partner's or roommate's device that you also use, where your files shouldn't be their business by default.

—A shared desktop where you step away mid-task and someone else sits down.

What does the work

Multiple separate vaults

Each person, or each purpose, can have their own vault with its own code on the same device.

Separate lock from the device login

The vault opens with its own 5x5 pattern or six-digit PIN, so knowing the computer's password isn't enough.

Stealth auto-lock

The vault closes and cryptographic keys are cleared from memory the moment the app is minimized, so stepping away doesn't leave it open.

Built-in secure viewer

Documents and photos open inside the vault, so nothing is decrypted into a shared folder that another account could reach.

AES-256-GCM encryption

Files are encrypted on the device before they are stored, not merely hidden from view.

12-word recovery phrase

Forgetting your code doesn't mean losing the files, and the phrase is yours rather than an account someone could reset.

Hiding a folder isn't a lock

The usual approach on a shared computer is a folder with a boring name, or the operating system's "hidden" attribute. Both are naming conventions. Anyone can flip a setting, sort by date, or connect the drive to another machine and read everything, no password involved.

Vaultine encrypts each file with AES-256-GCM before it's stored, so the difference isn't whether someone can find the files. It's that finding them doesn't help.

Its own lock, not the household one

On a shared device the login password is usually common knowledge, and that's fine for what it does. The vault opens on a separate 5x5 pattern or six-digit PIN, so being able to sign in to the computer isn't the same as being able to open your documents.

If more than one person wants this, multiple vaults means each of you can have your own on the same machine, with your own code, without anyone administering anyone else.

Stepping away is the normal case

On a shared computer you don't close things down, you get up. Stealth auto-lock handles that: the vault closes and the cryptographic keys are cleared from memory as soon as the app is minimized, so the next person to sit down finds a locked vault rather than an open one.

The built-in viewer matters for the same reason. Files open inside the vault, so a decrypted copy never lands in a shared or temp folder that another account on the machine could reach.

This isn't about secrecy from your family

Most of what belongs in a vault on a household computer is dull: tax returns, medical letters, passport and ID scans, insurance documents. None of it needs to be secret from the people you live with. It also doesn't need to be one double-click away for every guest, every future owner of the machine, and every piece of software running on it.

The bottom line

Sharing a device with people you trust doesn't mean everything on it should be equally visible to all of them. This isn't about hiding things from your family. It's that a household computer holds tax records, medical letters and ID scans that simply don't need to be one double-click away for whoever is sitting at it, including guests and anyone who ends up with the machine later.

Frequently asked questions

Can two people have separate vaults on the same computer?

Yes. Vaultine supports multiple separate vaults, each with its own pattern or PIN, so more than one person can use the same device without seeing each other's files. Multiple vaults are a Pro feature; the free tier covers one vault of up to 10 files.

Does the vault use the same password as the computer login?

No. The vault has its own 5x5 pattern or six-digit PIN, separate from the device login, so someone who can sign in to the computer still cannot open the vault.

What if I walk away with the vault open?

Stealth auto-lock closes the vault and clears the keys from memory as soon as the app is minimized, so an open vault isn't left waiting when someone else sits down.

Is this different from just hiding a folder?

Yes, substantially. Hiding a folder is a naming convention that anyone can undo by changing a setting or plugging the drive into another machine. Vaultine encrypts each file with AES-256-GCM, so without your code the data is unreadable rather than merely out of sight.

A shared device shouldn't mean shared files.