Getting started,
eyes open.
Setting up Sharp#Soft takes minutes. This guide explains the three things worth understanding before you start: your account, your credential, and recovery.
1 · Your account is a container, not a login
A Sharp#Soft account isn't a row in our user database — it's an encrypted container created on your device. Everything you protect lives inside it, sealed by keys that derive from it. Our servers store a copy of the sealed container; the original — and the ability to open it — stays with you.
- You create the account in the app; the keys are generated on your device
- Inside one account you can hold several identities — one for family, one for work — that outsiders can't connect to each other
- You are not an email address here: others reach you through an identity you chose to share
2 · Your credential is the only way in
Your account opens only with the credential you hold. There is no "forgot password" email — an operator who could reset your access could also grant that access to someone else, and that's precisely the capability we refuse to have.
- Choose your credential carefully and store it the way you'd store something valuable
- No support team can look inside your account — there is nothing for them to look at but ciphertext
The one decision that matters: recovery. Sharp#Soft offers an optional recovery path for credential loss that you configure and control. Skip it, and you keep the strongest possible guarantee — but if you lose your credential and recovery material, your content is gone permanently. No one can recover it — not you, not us. That's not a limitation we could remove; it's how end-to-end encryption works. Decide deliberately, at setup, while it's cheap.
3 · First steps once you're in
- Create your first identity — the face you'll show others. You can add more later and keep them separate.
- Put a file in the vault — see secure files for what the vault does and doesn't protect.
- Invite someone you trust — read sharing and trust first; it's short and it will save you a mistake.
- Verify who you're talking to — for anything sensitive, check key fingerprints once, over a channel you already trust.
Want the mechanism behind the rules?
The security walkthrough follows your data step by step — sealed on your device, all the way through.