VALT

Your passwords, kept safe. Right-click a password box and VALT fills it in.

User manual · Version 0.1.0 · This page prints.

VALT stores your passwords on this computer, encrypted. Nothing is sent anywhere. You unlock it once with your master password; after that, filling in a password on a website takes one right-click.

Your master password

It is the only key to the vault. It cannot be recovered or reset, by anyone. If it is lost, everything in the vault becomes permanently unreadable — and a backup file does not help, because it is encrypted with the same password. Write it down and keep it with your important documents.

Never give it to anyone who asks you for it, including someone claiming to be from your bank or from VALT. Nobody has a legitimate reason to ask.

Quick reference

1. Installing VALT

VALT works in Brave and in Google Chrome. Brave is preferable: Chrome shows a warning about developer-mode extensions every time it starts, and the button in that warning disables VALT.

Download VALT.zip

1. Download VALT.zip.
2. Unzip it. You get a folder named VALT.
3. Move that folder to C:\VALT.
4. Open brave://extensions in the address bar. In Chrome, use chrome://extensions.
5. Turn on Developer mode, top right.
6. Click Load unpacked, top left.
7. Select the C:\VALT folder.

VALT appears in the extensions list, and its icon appears beside the address bar.

Developer mode must stay on. It is how a browser accepts an extension installed outside the Chrome Web Store.

2. Opening VALT

VALT runs in the browser's side panel. Click the VALT icon beside the address bar to open it.

If the icon is not visible, click the extensions button — the jigsaw piece — find VALT in the list, and click the pin beside it.

Closing the panel does not lock VALT.

3. Setting up the vault

The first time VALT opens it shows Set up your vault. This happens once.

Step 1: Name your vault

The name is not encrypted and is readable without the master password, so choose something unrelated to the contents — Maximus, Willow Tree. It becomes the filename of your backup files.

Step 2: Choose a master password

Option 1 — four or more random words. VALT generates them. Randomly chosen words are considerably stronger than an invented password and easier to remember. New words generates a different set; the dropdown beside it changes the count to five or six.

Option 2 — your own password, minimum eight characters. Click Click here to create your own password.

Either way, VALT shows an estimate of how long the password would take to break. Write the password down before continuing, type it into the confirmation box, and click Create vault.

4. Unlocking

When VALT is locked the panel shows a padlock, the vault name, and one box. Type your master password and press Enter, or click Unlock.

A wrong password gives That password didn't work. Try again. There is no limit on attempts and nothing is locked out.

VALT only ever asks for your master password in its own side panel. A web page asking for it is fraudulent.

By default the vault stays unlocked until you close the browser, so you type your master password roughly once a day. If you would rather it locked itself sooner, ☰ → Settings offers delays from one minute upwards.

5. Saving a password

Do this on the website itself, on the page with the password box.

1. Right-click the password box.
2. Click VALT.
   • Nothing saved for this site yet: the panel opens on No password for this site. Click Save a password for this site.
   • Something already saved: a list appears. Click Save a new password… at the bottom of it.
3. Fill in Name (what you call the account, such as Bank — this is what appears in the right-click menu), Username, and Password. Generate invents a strong password if you are creating or changing the account now, and holding the 👁 at the end of the box shows what you have typed for as long as you hold it.
4. Check the Sites list below. The current website is already filled in. This list determines where the password will be offered, and it is not offered anywhere else.
5. Click Save.

If VALT is locked, the menu reads VALT is locked 🔒. Click it, unlock, and VALT continues with what you were doing.

6. Filling in a password

1. Right-click the password box on the website.
2. Click VALT.

With one password saved for that site it is filled in immediately. With several, a list of their names appears — click the one you want.

VALT only offers a password on the site it was saved for, and never suggests a similar one. If it offers nothing on a site you expect it to know, check the address bar before continuing.

If nothing is filled in

A few sign-in boxes are built in a way VALT is not permitted to reach into. When that happens you can read the password and type it in yourself: open the panel, click the password's name in the list, and hold down the 👁 at the end of the Password box. It stays visible while you hold it and hides the moment you let go.

If that is not practical — a long password is easy to mistype — use the website's own password reset, or ask whoever installed VALT.

7. The panel

Unlocked, the panel lists your passwords. Three buttons sit across the top: ＋ saves a new password, ☰ opens the menu, and ✕ closes the panel.

Passwords for the website you are currently on are listed first, under the site's name. The rest are behind Show all, which counts them. Each row shows the name and username; click a row to edit it.

A password is never displayed unless you hold it open. On the edit screen there is an 👁 at the end of the Password box: hold it down and the password shows, let go and it hides again. There is nothing to click that leaves it on screen, and VALT never copies a password anywhere.

The menu

☰ opens a short menu: Mode, Larger text, Settings, Help, and below a dividing line, Lock now. Press Esc or click anywhere else to dismiss it.

The two settings at the top change the panel as soon as you click them, and the menu stays open so you can see the difference and click again. Help opens this manual in a new tab, which needs an internet connection — the manual is on the web rather than inside VALT so it can be corrected without reinstalling.

Closing the panel

Two ways, and they do the same thing: ✕ at the top right, or the small ▸ tab on the left edge of the panel. Both appear only on this screen — every other screen has a < back arrow that returns here first.

Closing the panel does not lock the vault. Use Lock now in the menu for that.

8. Larger text

☰ then Larger text makes everything in the panel considerably larger. Click it again to go back. The setting is remembered, so this is a once-only job.

Encryption strength

Under ☰ → Settings there is a setting called Encryption strength, offering 64, 128, 256 or 512 MiB.

The strength used to secure your vault is set by how much memory is used while it opens. More memory means stronger encryption and a longer wait when you unlock. The memory is only borrowed during the unlock and is given straight back. None of the four settings is a weak one — the difference between them is how long you wait, so pick whatever you are comfortable with.

The setting shows how long your last unlock took, with estimates for the other three. Changing it needs your master password and locks the vault, so the next unlock shows you what you have chosen. If you do not like it, change it back the same way.

Two things worth knowing. Choose it on the computer that will use it — the same setting is quick on a fast machine and slow on an older one. And if a setting is too much for the computer, the change is refused and nothing happens to your vault.

9. Saving a backup file

A backup file is an encrypted copy of the entire vault in one file.

1. Unlock VALT, click ☰ and choose Settings.
2. Under Saved copies, click Save a backup file.
3. The browser downloads a file named after your vault. Store it somewhere other than this computer.

Because it stays encrypted it can be stored anywhere. Make a new one after adding passwords.

A second copy is kept for you

Whenever you save a backup file, a copy is also sent to the computer of whoever set VALT up. You do not have to do anything and there is nothing to check — it happens on its own.

It is there for one situation: this computer stops working and the backup file cannot be found either. Ask them and they can send it back to you.

That copy is locked with your master password, exactly like the file, so they cannot read what is in it and neither can anyone else. It is a spare copy of the locked box, not a spare key.

10. Importing a backup file

You need the file and the master password that was in use when it was saved. If the file is lost, ask whoever set VALT up — they hold a copy (see section 9) and can send it to you.

On a computer with no vault

1. Install VALT (section 1) and open it.
2. At the bottom of the setup screen, under Already have a saved backup file?, click Import a backup file.
3. Choose the file, type the master password it was saved with, and click Import this file.

Into a vault already in use

1. Unlock VALT, click ☰, choose Settings, and find Saved copies.
2. Click Import a backup file and choose the file.

11. If VALT will not unlock

• Check Caps Lock.
• A four-word password needs the spaces between the words.
• Check your written copy of the master password.
• Ask whoever installed VALT — they may hold a copy.

Deleting the vault does not affect the accounts themselves. Passwords you cannot remember can be reset on each website in the usual way.

12. Updating VALT

VALT does not update itself.

1. Download and unzip the new VALT.zip.
2. Replace the contents of C:\VALT with the new contents. Keep the folder where it is, with the same name.
3. Restart the browser.

Passwords are not stored in that folder and are unaffected. The master password does not change.

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