Skip to content

Setting up

Setting up BlindProof takes a few minutes, once. After that, you write as you always have.

What you will be asked for

A passphrase. A sentence or two of your own choosing. This is the key that keeps your manuscript private — without it, even we cannot read what BlindProof has recorded. Treat it like the combination to a safe. Writers sometimes pick a line nobody else would think of: a private in-joke, a fragment from a notebook, a misremembered quotation. Anything goes, as long as it is yours and you can remember it.

A folder to watch. The folder where you keep your manuscript. BlindProof will notice whenever you save a file in that folder, whether you are working in a single document or a collection of chapter files. You can change this later.

An email address. Only so we can recognise you on the sync. We never email you unprompted.

That is all.

The recovery sheet

Because we never see your passphrase, we have no way of helping you recover it if you lose it. So at the end of setup, BlindProof prints you a single sheet of paper with a QR code on it. That sheet is your spare key.

Keep the recovery sheet somewhere safe — the drawer where you keep your passport, a locked filing cabinet, a fireproof box. Treat it the way your bank asks you to treat the list of recovery codes they give out: not in your wallet, not on your desk, not in your email. Somewhere deliberate.

If you ever lose your passphrase, you can use the recovery sheet to get back in. If you lose both, we genuinely cannot help, and the saves BlindProof has made will no longer be readable. This is the same trade-off any end-to-end encrypted tool makes — it is the cost of the privacy promise.

What does not happen during setup

  • We do not ask you to upload your manuscript.
  • We do not ask you to connect any other account.
  • We do not install anything that runs anywhere except your computer.
  • We do not share your details with a publisher, an agent, or anyone else.

Once you have chosen a passphrase, pointed BlindProof at your writing folder, and put the recovery sheet somewhere safe, you are done. The app sits quietly in the background from then on.