Create your vault and save your Emergency Kit

Before you start

• Decide where your vault will live. For Remem Cloud, have your invite code ready.
• Choose a master password of at least 10 characters that you will remember. A long phrase of several unrelated words works well. It can’t be changed later and it can’t be reset.

Create the vault

1. Open Remem. You see Set up Remem.
2. In Email, phone, or username, enter your email address. It is used to derive your keys and to sign in on other devices. Remem Cloud and self-hosted servers require an email address, and so does connecting a This Device Only vault to a server later.
3. Phone number (optional) is kept on this Mac only. It isn’t sent to any server, and Remem doesn’t use it for sign-in or recovery, so you can leave it empty.
4. Enter your Master password and type it again in Confirm master password.
5. Under Sync cloud, choose Remem Cloud (sync.remempass.org), Self-Hosted Cloud (then enter the Custom sync server URL) or This Device Only. With This Device Only, the form reminds you that nothing is backed up automatically.
6. For Remem Cloud, paste your Invite code. A self-hosted server only asks for one if it was set up to.
7. Select Create vault.

Save your Emergency Kit

The next screen is Your Emergency Kit. It shows your Email (or Signs in as, for a phone number or username), your Secret Key (it looks like A3-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX), your Sync server and your Account ID. For This Device Only, Sync server reads “None”, with a reminder that the kit can’t restore the vault if the Mac is lost.

1. Select Save a printable copy. Remem writes remem-emergency-kit-<your email>.html to your Downloads folder.
2. Open that file in your browser and print it. It has a blank line for your master password; see Emergency Kit best practices before deciding whether to fill it in.
3. Delete the file and empty the Trash. It is not encrypted.
4. Store the paper somewhere safe that is not your computer, such as with your passport.
5. Tick “I have saved my Secret Key somewhere safe. I understand that losing it and my master password means losing this vault permanently.” and select Open my vault.

When your vault syncs, Copy browser pairing code on the same screen connects the browser extension right away. You can also do that later; see the browser extension. For This Device Only, there is no pairing code, because the extension needs a server.

After setup

• Add your first items or import from another password manager.
• Install the browser extension (needs Remem Cloud or your own server).
• Consider turning on Touch ID and checking the auto-lock time.
• Once your items are in, save an encrypted backup. For This Device Only, it is the only copy that survives losing your Mac.

What if…

Create vault stays greyed out

Check that the master password has at least 10 characters, both password boxes match, the email contains “@” for a cloud choice, an invite code is filled in for Remem Cloud, and for Self-Hosted Cloud the server URL is filled in.

It says the server needs an invite code

“This server needs an invite code to create an account.” Remem Cloud only creates accounts with an invite. Nothing was saved on this Mac, so you can fix it and try again. See the waitlist.

I already have a vault on another Mac

Don’t create a second one. Select I already have an account and follow Set up a second device.

I closed the kit before printing it

See “Lost your kit but still have a working device” in Emergency Kit best practices.