myglimpse Source

[ 00 ] the full list

Everything it does.
Which is not very much, on purpose.

A glimpse is one secret: a label, the value, an optional photo, and a reveal duration. The whole app is built around getting one of those onto your screen fast and off it again. Here is all of it, including how backups and sharing actually work.

yes, this really is the whole list. small is the point.

[ 01 ] hold to reveal

Press and hold. Eight seconds. Then it's gone before anyone else can read it.

This exists for one threat the cryptography cannot touch: someone reading your screen. The person behind you in a queue, a neighbour at the next table, a colleague leaning in. So every glimpse opens blurred. Hold the card and the value sharpens while a countdown runs; let go and it hides at once, sit through the countdown and it hides anyway. Eight seconds is the default, set globally or per glimpse, anywhere from a few seconds up to no countdown at all when you would rather a particular secret stay open until you close it yourself. The default keeps a secret on screen only while you choose to look; from there it is your call, one glimpse at a time.

a vault that flashes the secret across a crowded room isn't a vault.

[ 02 ] readable formatting

Sixteen characters you can actually read.

A modern WiFi key is sixteen characters with no breaks, and reading it off a screen in one pass is genuinely hard. MyGlimpse can group a long value into blocks of four, the same rhythm your eye already follows on a card number. In the few seconds a glimpse is on screen, that grouping is the difference between reading it right the first time and revealing it again because you lost your place. Set it per glimpse, in fours or a spacing of your own.

The spaces are only for your eyes. Copy the glimpse and you get the real value, unspaced and ready to paste.

less squinting means fewer re-reveals. quietly, that is less time on screen too.

[ 03 ] the small stuff that adds up

The rest of the everyday.

Speed access
Pin the four or five secrets you reach for daily to the top of the home screen, one hold from open.
Search & categories
Type "wifi" or "airbnb" and it filters as you go. Group glimpses into Home, Work, Travel, or labels of your own.
Biometric unlock
Open with the Face ID, fingerprint, or passcode your phone already uses. No second password to invent.
Auto-lock
The app re-locks when you switch away or after a timeout you set, and any revealed value blurs back on its own.
Per-glimpse reveal time
Five seconds for the bike lock, longer for the WiFi you read to a guest, or no auto-blur at all when you would rather close it yourself. Set it once, or per glimpse.

[ 04 ] custom templates

Build the shape once. Reuse it forever.

If you keep saving the same kind of thing, make it a template. Name the fields, mark which ones are secret, set a default reveal time, and add a photo slot if it needs one. A "Work" card with your company ID and badge number. A "Wi-Fi" card with the network and the password. The next time you add one, the form is already laid out.

your fields, your labels. not mine.

[ 05 ] photo glimpses

Some secrets are easier to photograph than to type.

Snap the router label, a meter reading, the gate code on a sticky note. And the documents you only need now and then but need quickly when you do: your passport and ID card at a check-in desk, a border, or a rental counter. Each photo is sealed and encrypted like every other glimpse and sits behind the same hold to reveal. A copy of your passport never lands in your camera roll, where it would otherwise sit in the open and sync to whatever photo cloud your phone backs up to. And because it is one labelled glimpse instead of a needle in ten thousand pictures, you find it in a second, and you can share it from the same place.

a photo of your passport is the last thing you want auto-uploading to a cloud.

[ 06 ] export the vault

One encrypted file you can open on any device.

  1. Settings, then Export vault

    It tells you what's leaving first: how many glimpses, templates, and photos are in the file.

  2. Set an export password

    This is separate from your unlock. The unlock guards this phone; the export password travels with the file so a different phone can open it. The key is stretched with Argon2id and the whole backup is authenticated, templates and photos included.

  3. Save or send the file

    You get a single .glimpse file. Drop it in Files, Drive, or AirDrop. Nothing in it is readable without the password, so it's safe to store anywhere.

the export password is the one to actually write down. there's no recovering it.

[ 07 ] restore a vault

New phone, or a fresh start. Same file.

  1. Pick the .glimpse file

    Settings, then Restore from backup, and choose the file from Files or Drive.

  2. Enter the export password

    The one you set when you exported. The app verifies the file is intact before it decrypts anything, so a tampered backup is rejected rather than half-imported.

  3. Merge or replace

    Merge adds the new glimpses and keeps what's already here, skipping duplicates. Replace wipes this device first, then restores. The choice is yours, so a restore never silently destroys what you had.

[ 08 ] share a glimpse

Hand someone the Airbnb lock code without handing it to our server.

  1. Open a glimpse and tap Share

    It encrypts the value with a fresh key right there on your phone.

  2. Choose how long it lives

    One view and it's gone, or a 24-hour window. Either way the relay deletes it after a day at most.

  3. Send the link, or show the QR

    The key sits after the # in the link, and browsers never send that part to a server, so it never reaches our relay. The relay only ever holds ciphertext it cannot read.

The full explanation of why the relay stays blind →