Emberlock help

On the Journal tab, tap ✎. Write as much or as little as you like — new entries save a draft as you type. Tap Save, then pick how the day felt.

Pick one mood, or a few for a mix. The first one you tap is the primary mood: it sets the entry's color and its square on the heatmap. Five moods are free; Premium adds ten more, like Grateful, Anxious and Proud.

Add #tags to an entry, like #family or #work. The Find tab searches everything you've written and also matches related words — search "family" and it finds mom, dad and sister too. You can filter by mood or tag.

Each day you write becomes a square in that day's mood color, so your year becomes a picture. Premium adds a month view, statistics and your past years.

A Premium feature. When you've written on today's date in earlier months or years, an "On this day" card appears at the top of the Journal (and of the Find tab) — tap one to reread it.

Settings → Reminders. A gentle nudge at the time you choose. It's scheduled on your phone and never sends anything anywhere.

Your entries are encrypted on your phone and never sent to us — there's no account, no sign-in and no analytics. Nobody, including us, can read them without your PIN or passphrase. Screenshots are blocked inside the app. Backups are optional, and encrypted before they leave your phone. More in our privacy policy.

You choose when you set up. A passphrase is the strongest. To switch later, use Settings → Change PIN (the type can't be changed while a decoy journal is set up).

Settings → Unlock with fingerprint. It opens your real journal only — never the decoy. It's also your safety net: if you forget your PIN, your fingerprint still gets you in, and you can set a new one in Settings → Change PIN.

The journal locks again when you leave the app, based on Settings → Auto-lock. Choose Immediately for the most privacy, or a short grace period for convenience.

A Premium feature: Settings → Set up decoy journal. You choose a second PIN that opens a separate, ordinary-looking journal. If someone makes you unlock the app, enter the decoy PIN — it looks exactly like a normal journal, with no sign a second one exists.

A Premium feature: Settings → Disguise app icon. Emberlock then appears on your home screen as "Calculator", with a calculator icon. Turn it off in the same place to switch back.

There's no reset — a reset would be a back door. Your ways back in: your fingerprint (if you turned it on), or restoring a backup with its passphrase. That's why a backup matters.

Settings → Back up now makes one encrypted .vault file, protected by a passphrase you choose, and lets you save it anywhere (Downloads, a cloud drive, etc.). That file plus its passphrase is how you recover your journal.

A separate secret (not your PIN) that encrypts the backup. We never store it and can't reset it. Use a few memorable words and write them down. The optional hint travels with the backup to jog your memory.

Premium. "Back up to Google Drive" uploads the encrypted file to a private, app-only folder in your own Drive — hidden from your normal files, and unreadable without your passphrase (not by us, not by Google). Auto-sync keeps it up to date as you write, keeping the latest two copies. Turn it off anytime in Settings.

Settings → Restore from a file (or from Google Drive), then enter the backup passphrase. Restoring REPLACES the journal on the phone, and warns you first if the backup has fewer entries. On a new phone, the first screen offers "I already have a backup — restore it".

Clear Emberlock's storage (Android Settings → Apps → Emberlock → Storage → Clear storage), open the app, and choose "I already have a backup — restore it". The locked journal on the phone can't be opened without the PIN, so the backup is what you'll get back.

Settings → Recently deleted. Deleted entries are kept for 30 days and can be restored with one tap. After 30 days they're removed for good.

The decoy journal, encrypted Google Drive backup with auto-sync, "On this day" memories, the full heatmap (month view, statistics and every year), ten more moods, all themes with their own painted scenes, and the disguised app icon.

Monthly or yearly subscriptions renew until you cancel. Lifetime is one payment and yours forever — including every Premium feature we add in the future.

Premium belongs to your Google Play account, not the phone. Sign in to the same Play account and tap Settings → Restore purchase (or "Restore purchase" on the Premium screen). You'll need an internet connection for this.

Settings → Manage subscription, or Google Play → Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions. Premium stays on until the end of the period you paid for.

Nothing you wrote is ever locked away — every entry stays readable and searchable, and an existing decoy journal keeps working. Auto-sync pauses: Settings shows the date of your last backup, which stays in your Drive — so make a local backup (Settings → Back up now, free) to stay covered. Other Premium extras pause until you renew, and pick up where they left off.

If you turned on the disguised icon, Emberlock looks like "Calculator". Open it, then Settings → Disguise app icon to switch back.

Tap "Different input?" under the keypad and choose 4-digit, 6-digit or Passphrase. This can happen after restoring a backup made on another phone.