What it deliberately does not do
Every one of these follows from the same decision: there is no server. You should know the whole bargain before you rely on it, not after.
An attacker at your unlocked, open vault
Once unlocked, files decrypt into memory — that is what unlocked means. Short auto-lock and panic-lock narrow the window, but an actively open vault is exposed to whoever is standing at it.
A compromised operating system
Kernel malware, a jailbroken phone, a Mac with SIP disabled. If the OS is owned it can read decrypted content out of memory. No userland app wins that fight, and any that claims to is lying to you.
Screenshots, and photographs of the screen
Neither macOS nor iOS lets an app block a screenshot of its own window — by the time we are notified the image already exists. iOS tells you a copy is now in Photos and offers to lock. That is reporting, not prevention. Screen recording IS defended; a second camera never can be.
A forgotten passphrase
No backdoor, no reset, by design — there is nobody holding a copy to reset it against. The recovery key rescues you from a fingerprint change. Nothing rescues you from a forgotten passphrase except a backup you exported earlier.
Coercion, and legal compulsion
The decoy raises the bar for someone discovering the vault exists. It does nothing against an adversary who already knows it does and can compel you to open it.
Hiding the app from your own system
A notarised app is visible in Applications. Making it invisible to the OS needs rootkit techniques — that is malware, and it fails notarisation. UniVault conceals identity and content, not the fact that it is installed.
It does not sync, share, or do teams
No links, no shared folders, no collaboration, no admin console. Sharing means giving someone a key, and the design has nowhere to put a second key holder. If more than one person needs the same file, this is the wrong tool.
Defended, but not completely
Three things are real defences with real edges. They are written here as they are in our own threat model, rather than rounded up.
Removing originals after import
Deleted photos sit in Recently Deleted for 30 days unless you empty it. The originals are gone from your library, not yet from your device.
The search index leaks a size signal
Its contents are encrypted, but the blob grows with how much text you hold. Someone with the file learns a rough magnitude, never what it says.
Per-file storage hides contents, not existence
Anyone looking at the folder can see that encrypted data exists and roughly how many items. Only the disk-image mode in UniVault X hides that the vault is there at all.
Export a backup today, not the day you need one
A single portable file with its own passphrase, restorable on any Mac or iPhone. Because it is ciphertext you can keep it in iCloud Drive, Dropbox or on a USB stick without exposing anything. It is the only thing standing between a dead device and losing what is in the vault, and it is free forever.