Vault and storage is the pane for how much Relic is holding, how long it holds it, and how to get a copy out. It is also where you turn on the weekly encrypted backup. Every row below is drawn the way the app draws it, with its default.
How much space you are using
These two rows only appear once this computer is signed in to an account. Storage used shows what your vault takes against what your plan allows, with a bar under it that turns from gold to a warning colour as it fills. On a plan where text does not count, the row shows the size of your text and the words unmetered text instead, and there is no bar.
Saved items (Vault) counts the items you have kept, against the limit if there is one. Kept items never age out, whatever plan you are on.
When there is no room left to keep anything new, a banner sits at the top of the pane until you dismiss it.
Keep recent history
Everything you have not kept is history, and history is trimmed from the oldest end. This row is where you say how much of it to hold. Items you saved to your Vault are never touched by any of this.
What the row offers depends on the plan this computer is signed in to.
- Free. The number is fixed at 500 and there is nothing to choose, so the row shows the number as plain text and the line under it reads Your plan keeps the 500 most recent history items.
- A paid plan. You pick between 100 and 10,000, from the choices 100, 500, 1,000 and 10,000. New accounts start at 1,000.
- A computer that is not signed in. The same choices plus Keep everything, which turns the limit off. There is nothing in the cloud to bound, so nothing is trimmed unless you ask for it.
Remove history older than is the second control, and it only appears on a computer that is not signed in. It is an age cap rather than a count: Never, 30 days, 90 days or 1 year. It stacks with the count above, so both apply. It starts at Never.
Clear all history
The row shows how many history items exist right now, with a Clear… button that is greyed out when there are none. This is the real one. Selecting everything in the window and pressing Delete only covers the rows that were loaded.
Pressing it asks first. The title counts what is about to go, and the body says what happens on your other computers when this computer is signed in to sync.
When it is done the pane says how many items went.
Images on this device
Pictures and files sync as separate pieces, and this computer keeps a local copy of the ones it has seen. Local image cache shows how much that takes. Clear only removes copies that are safely in your vault already, and they come back the next time you look at the item. Both the Clear button and the second row are hidden on a computer that is not signed in, because there is nowhere to fetch them back from.
Re-download images goes the other way and pulls anything missing back down. Use it after clearing the cache on a laptop you are about to take offline. It tells you how many it fetched, or says all your images are already local.
Where files go
Save location is where the Save button in the viewer writes an image or a file. It shows the folder under the row and starts at your Downloads folder. Change picks another one and Reset puts it back. Reset only shows once you have chosen a folder of your own.
Data folder is where this computer keeps your vault and its search index. The path is under the row, the size of the index is on the right, and Open shows it in your file manager. There is nothing to edit in there. It is useful when you want to know what Relic is actually taking up.
Export and import
Export… asks for a folder, then shows a small panel: the folder it will write to, a switch reading Include secret contents (otherwise secrets are exported redacted), and Cancel and Export. It writes every item as plain readable JSON, with copies of your images and files beside it, and counts up as it goes. When it finishes there is an Open folder button. Nothing about that folder is encrypted, so put it somewhere you trust. For a copy you can leave lying around, use the backup below.
Import vault has two buttons. Backup file… takes one of those encrypted backup files and asks for the backup passphrase before restoring. Folder… takes a folder from an export and asks you to confirm it. Either way, items you already have are skipped, so running it twice is harmless.
Back up automatically
Off to begin with. Turn the switch on the first time and a setup panel opens under the row instead. It asks for a folder, then a Backup passphrase and Repeat the backup passphrase, and the button reads Turn on. The panel spells out the important part: this passphrase is separate from your vault passphrase, it never leaves this computer, and if you lose it your backup files cannot be opened.
Once it is on, the row shows the folder with a Change button, a Back up now button for when you do not want to wait for the weekly one, and a line saying when it last ran, or Last backed up: never. Under that is a Change backup passphrase link, which opens the same panel with the button reading Change passphrase.
The file it writes is encrypted with that passphrase and nothing else, so the folder can be a Google Drive, OneDrive or Dropbox folder without handing them anything readable. It keeps the newest four and deletes older ones.