Frequently asked questions

What does DocuCasa cost?

Nothing. It's free. No trial period, no paid upgrade waiting behind a door, no subscription.

What if I forget my vault password?

Then your documents cannot be recovered. Not by you, not by us, not by anyone. That isn't a policy we could bend. It's how the encryption works, and it's the same acknowledgment you accept when you create a vault. Choose a password you'll keep. For everyday convenience DocuCasa can unlock with Touch ID, but the password remains the key.

How do I back up my documents?

Your whole library is one file. Lock the vault, then copy that file to an external drive or hand it to any backup tool you already use. Time Machine works too, with one caution. A copy made while the vault is unlocked can catch it mid-change, so the backups you trust should come from times the vault was locked. And keep the vault itself out of cloud synced folders. See the next question. One habit is worth having. Test a backup once by opening the copy in DocuCasa. A backup you've restored from is a backup. Anything else is a hope.

Can I keep my vault in iCloud Drive or Dropbox?

Not the vault you use. Keep the live vault in a folder that isn't cloud synced. Sync tools copy the vault's inner pieces one at a time, and syncing an open vault can corrupt it — the vault itself, not just the copy. And be careful here. If your Mac syncs Desktop and Documents to iCloud, your Documents folder counts as cloud synced.

A backup is a different story. A locked vault doesn't change while it uploads, so a copy of a locked vault is safe to keep in a cloud drive. Lock the vault, copy the file there, done.

Where are my documents, really?

In one encrypted file on your own disk, stored in Apple's standard disk image format. When you unlock it, the vault mounts like a small drive, and your folders and PDFs are simply in it. When you lock it, it's sealed again with the same encryption macOS itself uses. The file carries the .docucasa extension, but the format inside is Apple's, not ours.

How would I get my documents out?

You can do it without DocuCasa at all. Rename the vault's extension from .docucasa to .sparsebundle, then double-click it. macOS asks for your password and mounts it like any encrypted disk image. Inside are your folders and your PDFs, named and filed exactly as you left them. We'd rather you never feel locked in than never leave.

Does DocuCasa send anything anywhere?

The update check fetches one small version file from rojiapps.com. It happens at launch, at most once a day, and you can turn it off in Settings. That is the only network request the app ever makes. Your documents never leave your Mac.

Why isn't DocuCasa in the Mac App Store?

App Store apps must run in a sandbox, a locked room where an app can touch only its own files and what you explicitly hand it. DocuCasa needs to mount your encrypted vault to open it, and mounting is exactly the kind of system level action the sandbox forbids. So DocuCasa uses Apple's other official path instead. Every release is signed with our Developer ID, checked and approved by Apple, and downloaded from this site.