Vault Management
Organize, edit, and control every piece of your personal data.
Accessing Your Vault
From The Perch, tap any category tile to open its management screen. Alternatively, open the bottom navigation and tap Vault to see a scrollable list of all categories.
Each category is managed independently. Some are singletons (only one entry allowed: Identity, Birth Info, Preferences), while others are lists (you can add as many as you need: Addresses, Emails, Phones, Social Links, Links, Work History, External Identities, Documents, Travel Docs, Emergency Contacts, Medical Basics, Dietary, Education, Vehicles, Pets, Secure Notes).
Adding Items
In any list category, tap the floating + button to open the creation form. Fill in the fields and tap Save. Required fields are marked with a red asterisk; optional fields can be left blank.
For singleton categories, there is no + button. Instead, you see the existing entry (or an empty state) and tap Edit to modify it.
New items are saved to your local encrypted cache immediately and synced to the server in the background. You do not need to be online to create or edit vault data.
Editing Items
Tap any vault item to open its detail/edit screen. Make your changes and tap Save. If you leave the screen without saving, BoxOwl warns you about unsaved changes.
For list items, you can also perform a long-press on the list row to open a context menu with quick actions: Edit, Set Primary, or Delete.
Primary Flags
List categories that represent contact or location data support a Primary flag. Only one item per category can be primary at a time. Setting a new primary automatically unsets the previous one.
The primary flag tells the autofill extension which item to use by default when a form does not specify a context. For example:
- Primary Email — used for generic "email" fields
- Primary Address — used for generic address autofill
- Primary Phone — used for phone number fields
Addresses have an additional isShipping flag. When the extension detects a checkout form, it prefers the address marked isShipping=true over the generic primary address.
Visibility Controls
Every field in your vault has a visibility setting that controls who can see it:
| Setting | Visible To | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| Private | Only you | Home address, personal phone, birth date |
| Shared | Connections you explicitly approve | Work email, secondary address for gift shopping |
| Public | Anyone who visits your profile page | First name, bio, portfolio links |
To change visibility, tap the eye icon next to any field in the edit form. The icon updates immediately to reflect the new setting.
By default, every field is Private. You must explicitly choose to share or publicize any data. There are no global "make everything public" shortcuts.
Secure Notes (E2EE)
Secure Notes are end-to-end encrypted using your account's Master Key. Unlike other vault data which is encrypted at rest on the server, Secure Notes are encrypted on your device before being uploaded. BoxOwl employees and infrastructure cannot read the content of your notes.
You can share Secure Notes with other BoxOwl users. When you share a note, a unique key share is created for the recipient, allowing them to decrypt the note while maintaining end-to-end security.
Deleting Items
To delete a list item, open its detail screen and tap the trash icon, or long-press the row in the list and choose Delete. You will be asked to confirm.
To delete a singleton category (such as Identity), open the edit screen, tap the menu, and choose Clear All Fields. This resets the category to empty without deleting the category itself.
Deleted items are removed from your local cache immediately and purged from the server on the next sync. There is no "recycle bin" — deletions are permanent.
Vault Health Tips
- Review your Public fields regularly to make sure you are comfortable with what the internet can see.
- Set Primary flags for email, phone, and address to get the smoothest autofill experience.
- Mark at least one address as isShipping if you shop online frequently.
- Fill Preferences to enable size-match badges in Gift Shopping mode.
- Use the Export feature in Settings to create a JSON backup before making large changes.