Support

Last updated: August 29, 2026

Someone gave you a part, and now you need to use it

This is the situation the app was built for, so it comes first. What you hold is one part. On its own it reveals nothing. To recover what was stored you need to gather the number of parts the owner chose — often three — from the other people who were given one. Their names are usually on the printed kit.

  1. Gather enough parts. Fewer than the threshold will not work, and no amount of trying changes that.
  2. Open ShamirVault, choose Rebuild, and paste or scan each part.
  3. If the result asks for a passphrase, the owner set one. It is not written in any part — look for it where they told you it would be.
  4. Turn off the network first if what you are recovering is a seed phrase. The app works fully offline, and for this it is the safer way.

You do not need an account, a subscription, or a connection. Rebuilding is free and always will be.

What if this app no longer exists?

Then your parts still work. The format is documented publicly, and we publish a standalone Python script that rebuilds a secret with nothing but a computer. Save both alongside the parts — a plan that depends on a company still being around is not a plan.

I lost one of the parts

Count what is left. If you still have at least the threshold, nothing is lost yet — but act now: rebuild the secret and split it again into a fresh set. The old parts stop being useful the moment you do, which is exactly what you want if the missing one turns up in the wrong hands.

If you are below the threshold, the secret cannot be recovered. Not by you, not by us, not by anyone. This is the design working as intended, and it is why the app keeps asking you to run a drill.

I forgot the passphrase

There is nothing we can do, and nothing anyone can do. The passphrase is never stored, never sent and never recoverable — it is not a login, it is part of the key. If you have any candidates, try them: there is no lockout and no limit on attempts.

A part is rejected as invalid

  • Check for transcription slips. Hand-copied parts commonly lose a character, or confuse a zero with the letter O. Scanning the QR removes the problem entirely.
  • Check they belong to the same plan. Parts from two different splits will never combine, even if they look alike. Each plan has a fingerprint printed on its kit.
  • Check nothing was truncated. A part pasted from a chat message is sometimes cut short. Paste it from the original.

The vault will not open

If the app says it could not open the vault, that does not mean it is empty — it means the device's secure storage would not answer, usually because the device is locked or was just restarted. Unlock it and try again. The app deliberately shows an error rather than an empty list, because telling you that you have nothing saved would be the worst possible lie.

The vault does not exist in the web version: the browser has nowhere to keep the key that protects it. Use a phone for that, or keep the parts on paper.

Subscription: cancelling, restoring, expiring

  • To cancel, go to your App Store or Google Play account. We cannot do it from here, and cancelling is not the same as losing access — you keep the plan until the period you paid for runs out.
  • Bought it and the app does not know? Press Restore a purchase on the plan screen. This is also what to use on a new phone.
  • If the plan lapses, nothing of yours is deleted or locked. You can still open, read, download and delete everything. What stops is uploading new files and generating new kits.
  • Refunds go through Apple or Google. We do not process the payment and cannot issue one.

The app keeps reminding me to run a drill

On purpose, and you can set how often — once a year at least. A backup nobody has ever restored is not a backup, it is a belief. The drill takes a few minutes: gather the threshold, rebuild, confirm you get what you expect, put everything back. Doing it while you can still fix a problem is the entire point.

Deleting your account and your data

Delete the app and everything on the device goes with it. To remove the anonymous account created by a subscription, along with anything backed up, use the delete option inside the app. It is immediate and it is not reversible.

Reporting a security problem

Write to info@shamirvault.com with the details. Please give us reasonable time to fix it before publishing. Cryptography that nobody is allowed to examine is not worth trusting, so this kind of report is genuinely welcome.

Still stuck

Write to info@shamirvault.com. Tell us what you did, what you expected and what happened instead — and your device and app version if you have them. Never send us a part, a passphrase or a secret. We do not need them, we cannot use them, and no genuine support request will ever ask you for one.