Seal — at-rest encryption

By default your manuscripts sit on disk as plain Markdown and TOML — easy to back up, open in other tools, or read with anything. If you’d rather none of it be readable without a passphrase, turn on Seal. It’s off until you switch it on, and it’s all-or-nothing: everything you write is sealed, or nothing is.

This is local protection for the files on your own machine. It’s separate from the encryption Trove uses for sync and Circles (that one is always on and covered in Encryption).

What it protects

When Seal is on, every manuscript, scene, draft, snapshot, codex, and the titles and structure around them are stored as ciphertext on disk. Someone who copies your files (a stolen laptop, a synced backup folder, another account on the same computer) sees scrambled data, not your writing.

It does not protect you while the app is open and unsealed: at that point the writing is decrypted in memory so you can edit it. The protection is for your files at rest, not for a machine someone is already using while you’re signed in.

Turning it on

1. Open Settings → Devices & Sync and find the Security section.
2. Click Seal my writing.
3. Choose a passphrase. Pick something long: a few words you’ll remember beats a short, complicated string.
4. Write down the Seal backup phrase Trove shows you — 24 words, shown once. They are the only way back into your writing if you forget your passphrase. Store them somewhere safe and away from the computer.
5. Confirm, and Trove seals everything. Larger libraries take a moment.

From then on, Trove asks for your passphrase when you open the app, and reseals when you close it.

If you forget your passphrase

Use the Seal backup phrase. On the unseal screen, choose the backup-phrase option and enter the 24 words. You’ll be asked to set a new passphrase.

Note

If you use Trove’s community features you may also hold an account backup phrase — a different 24 words. The Seal backup phrase recovers your sealed writing on this device; keep the two labelled so you never reach for the wrong one.

The one warning that matters

There is no recovery beyond your passphrase and Seal backup phrase.

Trove cannot reset your passphrase, and there is no master key. If you lose both your passphrase and your Seal backup phrase, your writing is gone for good — we can’t get it back, because we never had a way to read it. This is the point of encryption, and it’s also the risk. Keep the backup phrase somewhere you’ll still have it years from now.

Turning it off

Click Turn off Seal in the same Security section and enter your passphrase. Trove decrypts everything back to plain Markdown and TOML. Your writing is unchanged — only the on-disk protection is removed.

Good to know

• Seal is per-device. Sealing this machine protects this machine’s files. Each device holds its own seal.
• Backups. A sealed file stays sealed in your backups too, which is usually what you want. Just remember the same rule: the backup is only as recoverable as your passphrase and Seal backup phrase. See Backups.
• Full-disk encryption still helps. Seal protects your writing specifically; OS-level encryption (FileVault, BitLocker, LUKS) protects everything else on the machine. They’re complementary.