Enhanced Security

Caution

There is no account and no cloud backup. If you lose both your Mac’s unlock methods and your recovery code, your encrypted captures cannot be recovered. That’s the price of true on-device privacy.

Enhanced Security encrypts everything Sealshot stores on your Mac and locks viewing behind Touch ID. Capturing always works — even while locked — so you never miss a shot; only viewing your library requires you to unlock.

What it protects

When Enhanced Security is on:

• Stored captures and recordings are encrypted on disk (AES-256-GCM).
• The search index, undo history, and extracted OCR text are encrypted too.
• Viewing requires Touch ID, your Apple Watch, or your Mac’s password.
• A recovery code is created at setup, in case your Mac’s keys are ever lost.
• The Privacy & Security settings themselves require authentication to open, so no one can quietly change them.

Turning it on

Open Settings → Privacy & Security and turn on Enhanced security. Sealshot encrypts your existing captures (a progress bar shows the work) and then walks you through the recovery-key ceremony.

Enable Enhanced security in Settings → Privacy & Security.

Save your recovery code

During setup Sealshot shows a recovery code. Store it somewhere safe (a password manager is ideal). If your Mac’s keychain is ever lost, this code is the only way back into your encrypted library.

If you lose it (but can still unlock), open Settings → Privacy & Security and use Recovery code → View… or Generate New… — a new code replaces the old one. Replace encryption key rotates the underlying encryption key itself.

Save the recovery code somewhere safe.

Caution

There is no account and no cloud backup. If you lose both your Mac’s unlock methods and your recovery code, your encrypted captures cannot be recovered. That’s the price of true on-device privacy.

Unlocking

When the library is locked, Sealshot shows a lock screen. Authenticate with Touch ID, Apple Watch, or your password to view your captures.

Unlock with Touch ID, Apple Watch, or your Mac password.

Locking

Set Sealshot to re-lock automatically after a period of inactivity — Off (default), 1, 5, or 15 minutes — in Settings → Privacy & Security → Auto-lock when idle. Idle means you’ve stepped away from the Mac (no keyboard or mouse activity anywhere, the same signal the screensaver uses) — working in another app doesn’t count as idle, and an in-progress capture or recording is never interrupted. Sealshot also locks when the Mac sleeps, the screen sleeps, or you switch users, and you can lock on demand from anywhere with ⌘⇧L (Lock now).

Sealshot also locks every time it starts, so opening the app asks for Touch ID. Turn that off with Lock when Sealshot starts in Settings → Privacy & Security and Sealshot opens ready to use instead. Your captures stay encrypted on disk either way — but with it off, anyone who can use this Mac can open Sealshot and read them, so you’re asked to confirm the change. Everything else above still applies: Sealshot re-locks on sleep, screen lock, user switch, the idle timeout, and ⌘⇧L.

While locked, everything that could reveal your library goes quiet: the editor, Library, import/export menus, and the open-editor / open-library / clipboard shortcuts are all disabled. Capture and recording shortcuts keep working — new captures are written encrypted, sight unseen, and wait for you to unlock.

Turning it off

Toggle Enhanced security off to decrypt your library again. You’ll be asked to authenticate, and Sealshot removes encryption from all captures on your Mac.