The short answer
It depends on how the app protects your photos. An app that only puts a lock screen in front of normal files can offer a reset. An app that encrypts the files with your secret cannot, and you need what you wrote down.
In Vault9, read your pattern or passphrase from your Emergency Kit. If you did not write it there, the vault is lost for good.
Try these in Vault9, in this order
Stay calm and do not delete the app. That deletes the vault on this phone. The iCloud backup also needs your pattern or passphrase, so it is no way around the problem.
- Try Face ID. If you turned it on and used it in the last 3 days, it opens the vault. After 3 days the app asks for your pattern or passphrase again.
- Find your Emergency Kit. It is the one-page PDF you made from the Gallery. Look in the places where you keep paper at home, or in your password manager.
- Read your secret from the kit. For a pattern, the kit has a grid of empty circles. You wrote 1 in the first dot, 2 in the second, and so on. Draw the dots in that order. For a passphrase, type it exactly as written.
If you lost the kit but still have the phone, print the same kit again from Settings. A new print will not hold a pattern that you never wrote down.
If the kit has no pattern on it
Then the vault is lost, and nobody can reset it. Vault9 has no account, no reset by email and no support back door, so we cannot open it for you.
You can still try to remember. Draw slowly. The first 4 wrong tries in a row cost no waiting time. From the 5th, the app makes you wait 1 minute, then 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and at most 60 minutes. The app never deletes the vault after wrong tries.
Why some apps can reset and others cannot
Some vault apps work like a locked door on an open room. The photos are normal files, and the developer can add a reset for the door. Other apps encrypt (scramble) each file with a key that comes from your secret. If the app never keeps that secret, the developer cannot rebuild it.
You can test any app with one question: if it resets your lock and every photo is still there, your secret did not protect the photos. How photo vault apps work explains the difference.
We chose the second kind for Vault9, and this page is the cost of that choice. Write your secret on the kit when you make it. Run the kit test in Settings now and then, because it checks that the kit still matches the vault. Keep the kit like a passport: a kit with your pattern on it opens your vault for anyone who also has a copy of your files.
Common questions
What if I lost the kit and the phone?
You cannot open the iCloud backup on another phone. The backup does not hold the Secret Key, and the kit does.
Can I open my vault on a new iPhone?
Yes, if you have the kit. Tap Open from iCloud backup, scan or type the Secret Key from the kit once, then enter your pattern or passphrase.
