What stays free if I do not pay?

The rule

York Vault never holds your own items behind a payment. We wrote this into the app as a hard rule. Before every release, a test runs the app with an expired subscription. The release fails if any of these paths shows a paywall:

• Viewing photos, videos and files
• Export to Photos or Files, and sharing through the share sheet
• Recovery from Trash
• Backup and restore
• The cover code, the erase code and album codes
• The attempts log

The paywall itself says what stays free: “Everything you add stays open on every plan. Viewing, export and restore are always free.”

Free on every plan

These are free on Free, Plus, Pro and Family, during a trial, after a trial and after a plan ends:

Feature	Free
Pattern, PIN or passcode, and Face ID or fingerprint	Yes
Recovery key	Yes
Cover code and erase code	Yes
Album codes	Yes
Attempt photos and the attempts log	Yes
Neutral icons, matching lock screens and the calculator front	Yes
Face down, shake and other quick exits	Yes
Encrypted backup to your own iCloud or Google Drive, and the restore check	Yes
Phone-to-phone transfer and the encrypted backup file	Yes
Private share links with fixed safe settings	Yes
Notes, voice notes and the IDs and cards view	Yes
The iPhone, iPad and Android apps	Yes
Export of any item or of everything, with no count limit	Yes
Trash, with free recovery	Yes
Viewer for photos, Live Photos, videos and documents	Yes
No ads	Yes

What Plus and Pro add

The Free plan has a limit on how many new items you can add. The limit applies to adding, never to keeping. If you reach it, York Vault tells you that your library holds the Free limit and that Plus adds space for more. Your items stay open. Items you share into York Vault above the limit wait in a safe inbox until you upgrade or delete other items.

Plus removes the item limit and keeps your backup in your own iCloud or Google Drive. A Lifetime purchase sits next to the subscription. Plus adds these extras, all in the app now:

• Sync between your devices on the same platform, and the Mac app
• Up to 8 libraries, each with its own code
• Custom settings for private share links
• Face ID plus the code, and location lock
• Search inside pictures, and a review screen for duplicates
• Optimize storage
• Face blur at capture, and extra video formats
• Extra icon and lock screen styles
• The private browser
• Priority support

Pro has everything in Plus, and adds:

• York Cloud, encrypted storage for people without enough iCloud or Google Drive space
• Sync between iPhone and Android
• The web app
• Shared albums with other York Vault users, who join on any plan
• Share links larger than the Free size

Family is Pro for up to 6 people, each with a private library.

If a paid extra ends, what you already set up never locks your items.

See Pricing for the current plans and prices.

After a trial or a lapsed plan

• Trial ends. York Vault shows the end date on the paywall before you start, and can remind you 2 days before. When the trial ends without a purchase, every item stays open.
• You cancel Plus or Pro. The plan stays on until the end of the period you paid for. After that, you can still view, export and restore every item. Shared albums you created turn read-only. York Vault deletes nothing in them. New items above the Free limit need a paid plan. See Cancel a subscription.
• A payment fails. Your items stay open, whatever the state of the payment.

What is not free

Adding new items above the Free limit needs Plus or Pro. Apple sells iCloud storage, and Google sells Google Drive storage. A large backup may need a paid storage plan from them. That cost goes to Apple or Google, not to us. York Cloud, the other choice for a large library, is part of Pro.