Notifications and activity

The notification centre, email alerts and the dashboard activity feed.

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Secure Vault keeps you informed in three ways: in-app notifications for things that happen to you, emails for account and security events, and a Recent activity feed on each workspace dashboard. This page explains what shows up where.

The notification centre

The bell in the top bar opens your notifications. A badge on the bell shows how many unread notifications or pending invitations you have (up to 9+). The app checks for new notifications every 30 seconds.

In the menu:

  • Pending invitations appear at the top, with Accept and Decline buttons. See Members and invitations.
  • Recent notifications follow, newest first. Unread ones are highlighted with a dot.
  • Select a notification to mark it as read and go to the page it refers to.
  • Mark all read clears the unread state of everything.
  • View all notifications opens the Notifications page.

Notifications belong to your account, not to a workspace, so you see them whichever workspace you have open.

The Notifications page

The Notifications page shows your pending invitations, then your recent notifications under Recent, with a Mark all read button. You can also reach it from the command palette (Ctrl + K, then Notifications).

The Invitations page

The Invitations page lists only the workspace invitations waiting for your answer. Invitation emails link here. Invitations expire after 7 days. If one you expected is missing, ask the sender to resend it to the email address you signed up with.

What triggers a notification

NotificationWho gets itWhen
Name invited you to workspaceThe invitee, if they already have an accountSomeone invites you. It's shown as a pending invitation until you answer
Name joined workspaceWhoever sent the invitationThe invitee accepts
Name declined the invitation to workspaceWhoever sent the invitationThe invitee declines
You were added to projectThe person addedSomeone assigns you to a project
Your role in workspace is now roleThe memberSomeone changes your role
You were removed from workspaceThe memberSomeone removes you from a workspace
You now own workspaceThe new ownerOwnership is transferred to you
workspace was deletedEvery member except the ownerThe owner deletes the workspace
Set up your vaultYouYou create a workspace without having a vault, or gain secure access to a project before setting one up
Secure access to project is pendingYouYou gain secure access to a project that already has a key, and you have a vault. A teammate's browser will share the key
Secure access granted to projectYouA teammate's browser shared the project key with you. You can now read and edit its secure documents
Name reset their vaultThe owner, and everyone whose role can change member roles (Admins by default), in each workspace the person belongs toA teammate resets their vault, so their public key changed. Compare their new fingerprint with them before trusting it
Wrong vault password entered 5 timesYouFive wrong vault passwords or recovery keys are entered on your account within an hour
document failed its integrity checkThe owner, and everyone whose role can change member rolesSomeone's browser couldn't decrypt a secure document, which can mean its stored data was modified. Sent at most once an hour per document

The vault notifications are explained further in Sharing access, Recovery and Security model.

Emails

Some events also, or only, send email. Emails go to your account's address.

EmailWhen
Verify your email addressYou sign up, or ask for a new verification link
Sign-up attempt for your accountSomeone tries to sign up with an address that already has an account
Reset your passwordYou use Forgot password? or Email me a link to set one
Your password was changedYour login password is changed or reset
New sign-in to your accountYour account signs in from a browser it hasn't signed in from before
Name invited you to workspaceYou're invited to a workspace, or the invitation is resent
Your vault password was changedYou change your vault password
Your vault was recoveredYou use your recovery key to set a new vault password
Your vault was resetYou reset your vault
Several wrong vault password attemptsFive wrong vault passwords or recovery keys within an hour

Emails never contain key material or document content. Security emails link to Account settings → Security so you can review your sessions.

Role changes, project assignments, removals and the other in-app events above don't send email.

If emails don't arrive, see FAQ and Email and Google sign-in.

Recent activity on the dashboard

Each workspace dashboard has a Recent activity feed with the latest changes in that workspace. It's meant for keeping up with your team's work, not for auditing.

It includes successful changes to projects and documents, such as:

  • projects created, updated, archived or restored;
  • people added to or removed from projects;
  • normal documents created, edited, restored or deleted;
  • secure documents created, edited, renamed, restored or deleted.

It excludes:

  • anything in projects you can't see, including projects that have since been deleted;
  • views: opening a document or an old version;
  • things that happen in someone's browser: decrypting a secure document, downloading a decrypted copy, and copying or revealing .env values;
  • failed and refused actions;
  • membership, role, invitation, sign-in and vault events.

Select a document or project name in the feed to open it.

For the complete record of everything, including views, sign-ins, vault events and failures, people with the View audit log permission can use the Audit log.

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