Recovery Kit

The Recovery Kit is a spare key to your Personal Cloud data, on a page you keep somewhere safe. It’s the only way back in if you lose every Mac on your account, and the fastest way to lock out a stolen one. You save it once, when you set up your first Mac. It never goes to Subcloak.

What’s in the kit

Save PDF… makes a one-page PDF, Personal Cloud Recovery Kit, on your Mac. It holds:

• your account email and the date the kit was made;
• the recovery key: CPRK- followed by 14 groups of 4 letters and digits, on two lines;
• a QR code of the same key;
• how to use it, in three steps.

The kit is made on your Mac and never uploaded. Once you’ve checked it, your Mac doesn’t keep a copy of the recovery key.

Keep it safe

The kit is a key to your data

Anyone who has your Recovery Kit and knows your account email can read your synced data: using the kit sends you no code. Keep it away from anything that syncs or gets shared.

• Keep it offline: in a password manager, or printed and in a drawer.
• If you saved the PDF, move it into your password manager or print it, then delete the file and empty the Trash. The key is plain text in the PDF, so Spotlight and backups can see it wherever it’s saved.
• Don’t email it, paste it in chat or put it in a synced folder.
• While the key is on screen, Cloak Proxy hides the sheet from screenshots and screen sharing. Copy puts the key on the clipboard for one minute, marked so clipboard managers and Universal Clipboard skip it.

Settings › Cloud › This Mac shows where your kit stands:

Row	Meaning	Button
Recovery Kit: Saved and checked.	You saved a kit and typed its last two groups back.	Make a New Kit…
Recovery Kit not confirmed	The check was skipped. Find the kit you saved, or make a new one.	Make a New Kit…
New Recovery Kit not saved yet	You made a new kit but closed the sheet before checking it. Your old kit no longer works.	Show New Kit…

Computers you add later don’t need a kit of their own: one kit serves the whole account.

Get back in with the kit

Use the kit when you’ve lost every Mac on your account, when you think one was stolen and can’t remove it from another Mac, or when you’ve signed out on your only Mac.

1. On the Mac you want to use, open Settings › Cloud and click Get Personal Cloud…. On the email sheet, click Use Recovery Kit…. (If you’ve already signed in with an emailed code and the sheet says Approve this Mac, click Use Recovery Kit Instead….)

2. Type the email printed on your kit. No code is emailed: the kit is enough.

3. Type the recovery key. Spaces, dashes and lower case don’t matter. Cloak Proxy checks the format and checksum as you type, before anything is sent, and says Looks right. Continue to check it against your account.

4. Read the note, then click Continue: “Your other Macs will need to be approved again: using the Recovery Kit signs them out of Personal Cloud and gives this Mac a new account key. Approve them from this Mac afterwards.”

5. Restore this Mac: choose what comes back onto it and click Restore, then follow Finish setting up this Mac. See Restore this Mac.

What using the kit does

Using the kit is one step: either all of it happens, or none of it does.

1. This Mac proves it holds the kit, and checks your account’s list of computers and the account key against it.
2. Every other computer on the account is signed out, including a stolen one.
3. This Mac makes a new account key that only it and the kit can open. Your synced data stays readable.

Afterwards, approve your other Macs again from this one. Recovery isn’t limited by your plan’s number of computers.

If the kit isn’t accepted

Message	What to do
That isn’t a recovery key. It starts with CPRK- and has 14 groups of 4 characters.	Check what you typed against the kit. The letters I and L are read as 1, and O as 0.
That recovery key doesn’t belong to this account.	You signed in with a different email, or this is an older kit that has been replaced.

If you’ve lost every Mac and the kit, your Cloud data can’t be recovered, by you or by Subcloak. The data on each Mac is never affected.

Make a new Recovery Kit

Make a new kit if someone else may have seen yours, or if you saved it somewhere you no longer trust. Making one needs your current kit; if you’ve lost it, email hello@subcloak.com from the account’s address and we’ll help. The old kit then stops working for anything new: it can’t add a computer or open data written from then on.

1. In Settings › Cloud › This Mac, click Make a New Kit… next to Recovery Kit.

2. Make a new Recovery Kit asks you to type your current Recovery Kit, to prove that whoever replaces the kit holds it. Type it and click Make a New Kit.

3. Save the new kit and check it, as during setup: Save PDF…, Print… or Copy, then type its last two groups.

4. Destroy the old kit: delete the file, shred the printout, remove it from your password manager.

Your Mac also changes the account key, so the old kit can’t open anything new. If you close the sheet before checking the new kit, Settings › Cloud shows New Recovery Kit not saved yet with Show New Kit… until you do.

If another computer on your account replaces your Recovery Kit, your Mac always asks you Did you do this? Answer No if you didn’t.

Related

Get startedSave your first kit during setup.

Remove a lost or stolen MacWhen you still have another Mac.

Add another MacApprove your other Macs again after a recovery.

Security and privacyHow the kit protects your account.