Create a vault on Mac

Before you start

Have room for the vault's selected capacity and, if you use a movie cover, the movie data too. Save the vault outside an app bundle or the app's private container. Choose a location you can find and back up later.

If PhantomVault asks you to enable its filesystem extension, choose Open File System Extensions or Open Login Items & Extensions, as shown in the setup screen. Enable PhantomVault under File System Extensions, then return to the app; setup resumes automatically. If it was already enabled, choose Continue. Permission previously granted to PhantomSecure is separate from permission for standalone PhantomVault.

Create the vault

1. Select New Vault, or Create New Vault in an empty library.
2. In Choose a Disguise, choose Vault File for an ordinary vault file or Movie for a playable movie carrier.
3. For a movie, choose Generated Cover or Use My Movie. Wait for preparation to finish before continuing.
4. Choose a name and the available icon options. A custom icon uses Choose Image…; Use Default restores the default choice.
5. In Unlock Your Vault, choose Passphrase or Security Key. A passphrase must contain at least 12 characters and match Confirm passphrase. For a key, read the key requirement and acknowledge it.
6. Choose Additional Protection: None, This Mac, or iCloud. Read and acknowledge the recovery limit for an additional key.
7. In Choose Your Vault Size, choose the storage capacity. The custom control accepts whole MiB from 1 MiB to 8 GiB. The wizard shows space inside the vault separately from its estimated file size on disk.
8. Review the summary and Save Location, then choose Create Vault.

The completed vault appears in the remembered list. Open it using its selected unlock method, then work in Finder.

Saving a movie carrier

With Use My Movie, the final Where to Save section offers Keep Original & Save Elsewhere or Move Original & Save Here. Check both Original saved to and Vault saved to before creating. The movie-cover guide explains these choices.

Choose protection for how you will use the vault

This Mac binds the additional key to this Mac. It is unsuitable for a vault you need to open on iPhone, iPad or a replacement Mac. iCloud requires the corresponding iCloud Keychain key on each device. Neither is a substitute for the selected passphrase or security key.

See passwords and additional protection and security keys before choosing a method you have not used before. Decoy-vault creation is not available in this version.

If Create is unavailable

Check the current step for an incomplete name, invalid size, unmatched passphrase, unacknowledged protection requirement, unfinished movie preparation or missing destination. Use Back to correct the choice. If the destination already contains the proposed file, choose another location or name; do not remove a file you still need.