In short
Meetings already on your Macs are untouched; they are on those disks. What the key protects — the synced copy of your meetings' text — cannot be opened without it, by you or by Notey, which never had the key. A Mac cannot join sync without it.
If you have lost Notey's recovery key, the meetings already on your Macs are safe: they are on those Macs' disks, and losing the key does not touch them. What you cannot do without the key is open the encrypted copy that sync keeps in your account, or add a Mac to sync. Nobody can do that for you, including Notey, because Notey never had the key.
This guide explains what the recovery key protects, exactly what a lost key costs you, what to do right now if you still have a Mac with your meetings on it, and how to store a key so it does not happen again.
What the recovery key does
Sync between your own Macs works by encrypting each meeting on the Mac before it leaves, with a key derived from the recovery key. Notey stores the result, which it cannot read. Every Mac you set sync up on holds the key; that is how each one can open what the others send.
- Setting sync up is making or entering the key. On the first Mac, Notey makes it and shows it once, with a warning that Notey has no copy and cannot make a new one.
- Every other Mac joins by entering it. Notey checks the key against what is already synced before keeping it, and tells a typo apart from a key that is simply a different one.
- The key never goes to Notey. It exists only on your Macs.
End-to-end encrypted meeting notes explains why the provider not holding the key is the property that matters, and what is still visible to a provider in a design like this.
What a lost recovery key costs you
| What | With the key lost |
|---|---|
| Meetings on a Mac you still have | Untouched: they are on its disk, and you can read, search and edit them |
| Recordings on the Mac that made them | Untouched |
| The synced copy in your account | Cannot be opened by you or by Notey |
| Adding a new or replacement Mac to sync | Not possible without the key |
| AI notes, recording, transcription on any Mac | Unaffected; none of these use the key |
The key matters most on two days: the day you add a Mac, and the day you lose one. On every other day, the Macs that already hold the key carry on.
If you still have a Mac with your meetings
This is the common case: the note you wrote the key on is gone, but your Macs are fine. Nothing is lost yet. The aim is to make sure that losing a Mac later does not also lose the meetings on it.
- Do not sign out or turn sync off on a Mac that is working. Those Macs hold the key already. Signing out pauses sync; it does not delete meetings, but there is no reason to change a working setup while you sort this out.
- Keep the Macs up to date with each other. Open the Sync screen on each and check the status line says when it last synced. With sync working, each Mac holds the meetings from the others, so every one of them is a copy.
- Export what you cannot afford to lose. Notes export as Markdown and transcripts as plain text, to a file. An export is readable without Notey and without any key. Exporting meeting notes has the steps.
- Back up the disk. A Time Machine backup of your Mac normally includes Notey's data folder in your user Library, recordings included. It protects the Mac's own copy of everything, independently of sync. Backing up meeting recordings covers what to check, including encrypting the backup.
- Ask Notey before you try to start over. If you want sync set up again with a new key, write to Notey at hello@ainject.com before changing anything, and describe what you have. This guide does not give steps for replacing a key, because doing it wrongly could leave a Mac cut off from meetings it expects to receive.
If you have lost the Mac as well
If the key and the only Mac that held some of your meetings are both gone, those meetings cannot be recovered from sync. The synced copy exists, but without the key it is ciphertext and nothing more.
What may still exist:
- Another Mac of yours that was syncing. Every meeting that reached it before the loss is on its disk, with its transcript and notes. Recordings are there only for meetings that Mac recorded itself.
- A Time Machine or other disk backup of the lost Mac. Restoring that backup to a new Mac brings back what was on the disk at the time, recordings included.
- Exports you made along the way.
Getting meeting recordings back after losing a Mac goes through these in order, for the case where you still have the key.
Why Notey cannot help you open it
This is not a policy that support could make an exception to. The synced copy is encrypted on your Mac with a key derived from the recovery key, and the recovery key exists only on your Macs. Notey's service holds encrypted data and no means to decrypt it. There is nothing to reset, because nothing on Notey's side can open your meetings with or without a reset.
The privacy policy says it in one line: if you lose your recovery key, Notey cannot recover your copy, as a consequence of not holding the key. Any service that could recover it for you would, by definition, be able to read it.
Keeping a recovery key safe
The key has to survive the loss of any one device, and it has to stay out of places where others can read it.
- A password manager that syncs across your devices is the usual answer: it survives a lost laptop, and it is already where you keep things that must not leak.
- A printed copy somewhere safe at home or in the office works as a second copy that no software failure can take away.
- Not in the meeting notes themselves, not in an email to yourself, and not in a note synced by a service you would not trust with the meetings.
- Check it once. When you add your second Mac, you will type it in; that is a good moment to confirm the stored copy is correct.
If you manage keys for a small business, write down where the key for each person's Macs is kept. Sync in Notey is one person's own Macs, not a team; each person holds their own key. Keeping your meeting notes on two Macs covers setting up sync from the start, and sync between your Macs is part of the paid plans. Deciding how long meetings should be kept at all is covered in a meeting recording retention policy.
Frequently asked questions
Can Notey reset my recovery key?
No. The key exists only on your Macs, and Notey never receives it, so there is nothing on Notey's side to reset or to decrypt with. That is the point of the design, and also its cost.
Will I lose my meetings if I lose the recovery key?
Not the ones on your Macs. Each Mac keeps its meetings on its own disk. What you lose is the ability to open the synced copy, which matters when a Mac is lost or when you add a new one.
Can I add a new Mac without the recovery key?
No. A new Mac joins sync by entering the key from your other Macs, and Notey checks it against what is already synced before accepting it.
Where should I keep a recovery key?
Somewhere that survives losing a Mac. A password manager that syncs across your devices is the usual choice; a printed copy kept somewhere safe is a reasonable second.
Does losing the key stop sync on Macs that already have it?
The Macs that already hold the key keep using it; losing your written copy does not remove it from them. The risk is the day you need to enter it again.