Support · Recovery
Recover your access.
Your Secret Phrase is the only door back in. With it, restoring takes three steps. Without it, there is no side entrance — for you, for us, for anyone.
01 / THE PATH BACK — THREE STEPS
Walk three steps back in.
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Install QERYX on the device
Fresh install on the new or wiped phone — every distribution path is listed on the download page.
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Choose Restore
On first launch, choose Restore instead of creating a new identity, and point it at your encrypted backup.
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Enter your Account ID and Secret Phrase
The backup decrypts on-device. Your Secret Phrase is stretched with Argon2id (m=512 MiB, t=2, p=4) before it touches a key — it never leaves your phone, and it is never sent to us.
02 / THE LIMITS
Read the limits before you need them.
We cannot recover your messages or your account if you lose your device and your Secret Phrase. There is no key-escrow and no master reset.
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Cannot
Decrypt your backup without the Secret Phrase. Neither can we — the key is derived from your Secret Phrase on your device, and we never see either.
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Cannot
Rebuild your history from the server. Delivered messages are erased rows; there is nothing on the relay to restore from.
03 / THE EDGE CASES
Ask the three that go wrong.
I forgot my Secret Phrase. What now?
The backup stays sealed — that is the design working, even when it hurts. Create a fresh identity, let your contacts re-verify your new safety number, and store the new Secret Phrase somewhere you cannot lose it.
While you still have a working device, both values live behind the biometric gate at Profile → Recovery Credentials, which shows your Account ID and Secret Phrase together. Read them somewhere private and write them down off-device; that screen is the last place they can be recovered from rather than regenerated.
Why can't you make an exception for me?
Because an exception path is a compulsion path. Any door we could open for you, we could be forced to open for someone else. The absence of that door is what you are paying for.
Do my contacts see anything when I restore?
Restoring onto the same identity keeps your keys; conversations continue. If you create a new identity instead, your contacts see a key change in the transparency log and should re-verify your safety number.