Forgot your photo vault password or pattern? What you can still do
If you forgot your photo vault password or pattern, try the other doors first: Face ID, a backup PIN, then the recovery phrase if the app gave you one. In Mirage Vault, tap Forgot pattern? on the lock screen and type the eight words; you then draw a new pattern. Without the phrase, nobody can open the vault, including Mirage.
Forgot the vault password: the doors that may still be open
A forgotten vault password or pattern is not always the end. Most vault apps have more than one way in, and the order to try them is the same everywhere.
| Door | When it works | In Mirage Vault |
|---|---|---|
| Face ID or Touch ID | If you turned it on before and the enrolled faces have not changed | Opens the real vault on launch; bound to the faces enrolled when you turned it on |
| Backup PIN | If the app let you set one next to the pattern | Tap Use PIN on the lock screen; 4 to 6 digits |
| Recovery phrase | If the app gave you one at setup and you wrote it down | Tap Forgot pattern?, type the 8 words |
| Password reset by e-mail | Only in apps with an account; it means the company can open your vault | Does not exist: there is no account |
| Guessing | Patterns people reuse: a letter, a corner-to-corner line | 5 free attempts, then a pause from 30 s doubling to 1 hour |
Forgot the pattern in Mirage Vault: step by step
- Open the app and wait for Face ID
Face ID fires when the app comes to the front. If it unlocks the vault, go straight to Settings › Change pattern and draw a new one twice. If Face ID is off or fails, continue.
- Try the PIN, if you set one
Use PIN appears on the lock screen only when a backup PIN exists. Type it; the vault opens, and you change the pattern in Settings.
- Tap Forgot pattern? and type the recovery phrase
Type the 8 words in order, in lower case. The phrase is not subject to the attempt lockout, so a pause from earlier wrong patterns does not block it. A typo gives That phrase does not open this vault. Check the order and spelling.
- Draw a new pattern
The phrase opens the vault and asks for a new pattern right away. Draw it twice. Your photos were not re-encrypted; only the pattern’s key slot was replaced. Turn Face ID back on in Settings › Unlock.
- Write a new phrase if the old one is anywhere unsafe
Settings › Recovery phrase › Generate a new phrase replaces it; the old phrase stops working. The app offers to save the phrase as a text file; a sheet of paper away from the iPhone is safer.
Why the vault cannot be reset
The pattern is not a password checked against a stored copy. It goes through PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256 with at least 600,000 rounds, and the result is wrapped by a key inside the Secure Enclave of your iPhone. Only a correct pattern unwraps the vault key; a wrong one produces nothing to compare against except a failed authentication tag. Mirage holds no copy of the pattern, the phrase or the key, and has no server to hold one on. A support request cannot change that, which is why the support page says so in the first paragraph.
If the recovery phrase is gone too
Then the vault is sealed. The honest list of what remains:
- Originals you never deleted are still in the Photos app. Check the Recently Deleted album there as well; it keeps deletions for 30 days.
- Photos you exported or shared from the vault exist wherever you sent them.
- The encrypted iCloud backup is useless without the phrase. It is not a second key.
- Starting over is Settings › Erase vault and start over once you accept the loss. The new vault gets a new phrase; write it down this time, and confirm it with Check one word so the checklist marks it as saved.
Not working?
- Forgot pattern? is missing. It is always on the pattern lock screen; on the PIN lock screen it reads Forgot PIN? and does the same.
- “Try again in N s” while typing the phrase. The pause belongs to pattern attempts; the phrase ignores it. Wait for the countdown only if you want to try the pattern again.
- The phrase worked but Face ID is off. After a recovery unlock, every key bound to the Secure Enclave is cleared and recreated from the new pattern. Turn Face ID on again in Settings › Unlock.
- The phrase worked on a different iPhone and the vault is empty. The backup is still downloading; the status is shown in Settings › Backup. See moving the vault to a new iPhone.