Umbera has no email or phone number on file, so nobody — not even us — can reset your password. Your way back in is the 12-word recovery phrase the app gives you at sign-up. Here is exactly what it restores, what it doesn’t, and what happens if it’s lost.
At sign-up the app shows a 12-word phrase. All the keys of your account are made from it. The server never sees it.
Registration finishes only after you confirm that you saved the phrase or the file and understand the account can’t be recovered without it.
Settings → Recovery phrase & private key: show, copy or save to a file. Besides the phrase there is a private key (a line that starts with UMBERA-KEY-1) that works the same way.
Never show the phrase or the key to anyone, and never send them to us — we will never ask. The recovery file isn’t password-protected, so keep it somewhere safe, away from the phone.
On the sign-in screen choose Phrase, Private key or “Sign in with recovery file”. No password is needed.
We have no copy of your password and no email to send a link to. To change the password you need the current one; without it, keep signing in with the phrase.
If you remember the password, it’s enough to sign in on another phone: your keys are restored from a copy on the server that only your password opens.
Without the password, the phrase, the private key or the recovery file nobody can get back in — not you, not us. That is the price of an account that doesn’t depend on a phone number or a server record.
Write the phrase down on paper and keep it where you keep important documents. Check it once: sign in with it on the sign-in screen or open it in Settings.
Nickname, quant address, profile, contacts and a paid subscription come back after you sign in. They are kept on the server as an encrypted copy that only your keys open.
Messages still waiting on the server arrive again after sign-in. The server keeps them for 30 days at most, so older history does not come back.
When you sign in on a new phone, the old one is signed out and its local data is erased.
A copy of your chats in iCloud or Google Drive would be one more place your conversations could leak from. So Umbera doesn’t make one.
On Android system backup and phone-to-phone transfer are switched off for Umbera. On iPhone the message database is excluded from iCloud and device backups, and the keys stay on this device only.
Settings → Back up keys saves your keys to a file encrypted with a passphrase of your choice. It restores the account, not the chats.
A free trial with everything open, then a few contacts stay free for good. No card required.