How to Use Notenz: The 5-Minute Setup (Golden Path)

Notenz is built so the whole setup takes about five minutes, then runs quietly in the background. This is the "golden path" — the shortest route from signing up to having a working safety net for your family. No step here requires more than a couple of clicks.

1. Create your free account

Sign up with your email — no credit card needed for the Free plan. You'll land straight on your dashboard, which shows your check-in status at the top.

2. Add your first vault item

Click "Add Item" and write down the first thing your family would need to find — an account location, an instruction, a password, or a personal message. Everything you write is encrypted before it's stored. You can pick from a few quick-start templates (Bank & Finance, Important Logins, Final Wishes) to get started faster.

3. Add a recipient

This is the person who'll receive your vault if you ever stop checking in — a partner, sibling, or close friend. Add their name and email. They'll get a one-time confirmation email so they know they've been added (and so the address is verified before it's ever relied on).

4. Set your check-in interval

In Settings, choose how often you want to check in — weekly is the default and works well for most people. This is also where the grace period lives: if you miss a check-in, Notenz won't act immediately. It waits, and tries to reach you by email, SMS, and other channels before doing anything else.

5. Check in (the easy part)

Each check-in is one click from a link in your reminder email — no login required. That's the entire ongoing commitment. Everything else just sits there, encrypted and untouched, until it's needed.

That's it

Account, first vault item, one recipient, a check-in interval. That's the whole golden path — everything else (file uploads, multiple recipients, staged delivery, the zero-knowledge Recovery Vault) is there when you need it, but none of it is required to get real protection from day one.

Have questions about check-in intervals, grace periods, or how delivery works under the hood? The How It Works page covers the full mechanics and FAQ.

For more on the concepts behind this setup, see how a dead man's switch works and what happens to your accounts without one.

Need a strong, memorable master passphrase for your vault? Generate one with the free Passphrase Weaver, built on the official EFF wordlist and generated 100% locally.