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Your vault and profile folder

Daisy keeps your secrets in an encrypted vault and stores everything else in a profile folder on your machine. This article explains both and how to manage them.

The vault — two ways to unlock

The vault holds your secrets: provider API keys, webhook auth tokens, subscribed calendar feed URLs, your speaker voiceprints, and a couple of internal keys (the per-install signing seed and the local MCP token). It's a single keys.vault.json file encrypted with AES-256-GCM. During setup you pick how it's unlocked:

  • Passphrase (recommended) — set a passphrase of at least 22 characters (weak or common ones are rejected). Daisy asks for it on each launch, so only you can unlock the vault — required for regulated data (see the HIPAA guide). There is no recovery if you forget it — your secrets can't be decrypted without it. Write the passphrase down somewhere safe.
  • I trust this machine — no passphrase. The vault key is derived from this computer's own machine ID, so Daisy unlocks automatically each time you launch; anyone who can sign in to this computer can open the vault. It is still encrypted on disk, so a copy that leaves this machine (a backup, a synced folder) stays unreadable.

Your meetings (recordings, transcripts, summaries, notes, and tags) are saved as plain files in the profile folder and are not encrypted. They stay intact even if the vault is reset.

Unlocking on launch

If you chose I trust this machine, Daisy unlocks the vault automatically when you open the app — nothing to do. (Because the key comes from the machine ID, reinstalling the operating system makes that vault unrecoverable.)

If you chose to encrypt with a passphrase, an Unlock screen appears each launch:

  1. Type your passphrase, or tick Show passphrase to check it.
  2. Click Unlock.

If you forget it, Forgot passphrase? offers to destroy and recreate the vault. You type RESET to confirm. This clears your stored keys and voiceprints but keeps every meeting.

Managing the vault

Open Settings → Profile and find the Vault section. What you see depends on the mode you're in:

  • In trust-this-machine mode: an Add a passphrase… button switches you to passphrase mode in place — your existing keys are re-encrypted, with no data loss.
  • In passphrase mode: Change passphrase…, Lock vault now (returns you to the Unlock screen — useful when stepping away), and Drop passphrase (trust this machine)… (switches back to auto-unlock, again with no data loss).

Managing your profile

The rest of the Settings → Profile section covers your data:

  • Your name — the name used in summaries; the summarizer refers to you as "you" instead of by name. Edit it and click Save. On a licensed copy this is set from your license and locked to the licensee, so it can't be changed here.
  • Profile directory — shows where your data lives. If you launched Daisy with the DAISY_PROFILE_DIR environment variable set, that path is shown instead and Daisy tells you it's overriding the saved location for this session.
  • Switch profile… — point Daisy at a different profile folder.
  • Move profile… — move all of your data to a new location.

Switching to another profile

Switch profile… lets you keep several separate profiles — a personal one and a work one, say — and jump between them. Pick a folder and Daisy restarts into it:

  • If the folder already holds a Daisy profile, confirm with Switch & restart. Daisy reopens on that profile. A passphrase vault asks you to unlock it; a trust-this-machine vault unlocks on its own.
  • If the folder is empty (or isn't a Daisy profile), confirm with Create & restart. Daisy restarts and runs the setup wizard to build a fresh profile there.

Your current profile is left exactly where it is — nothing is copied, moved, or deleted. Your license lives with the install rather than the profile, so it carries across every profile you switch to.

Moving your profile

Move profile… copies your data to a new location and restarts Daisy there. Your old data stays in place until you delete it manually.

Both Switch and Move share the same rules:

  • They restart the app. That's deliberate: Daisy binds to a profile folder when it starts and can't be repointed while it's running.
  • Neither works during a recording. Stop the recording first.
  • You can't pick the folder you're already using — Daisy tells you it's already the current profile directory.