The Binder
The Binder support
Last updated 15 September 2026.
The Binder is the if-something-happens file: nine sections of plain questions about where your documents are, what accounts exist, who to ring, and what you want to happen, encrypted on your phone as you write it.
Who receives it, and when
This is the most important thing on the page, so it comes first. The Binder does not send anything to anybody. Nothing is released on your death, after a delay, or to a named person.
There is no recipient in it and no field for one: no release schedule, no executor view, no sharing, and nothing that checks whether you are alive. This version is a vault and a checklist you keep.
So the way it reaches anybody is deliberate and low technology: export a copy from the Account tab, print it, put it with your will, and tell one person where it is. An encrypted binder on a phone is no use at the moment it is needed, because the person who knows the passphrase is the one it is about.
What happens if I forget the passphrase
The binder is gone, and nobody can get it back.
Everything you write is encrypted on your device with a key worked out from your passphrase. The passphrase is never sent to us, and there is no key on our side, no admin view, and no support process that can open a binder. A reset link, or a recovery key we held, would be a way in that works just as well for the wrong person. A wrong passphrase is refused rather than quietly showing you plausible rubbish.
Why it asks for the passphrase again
The key exists only in memory while the app is open. It is not saved to the keychain or to storage, because that would turn a vault the server cannot read into one that anybody holding your unlocked phone can, which is also why there is no Face ID unlock. The binder re-locks about two minutes after the app goes into the background, not instantly, so answering a text does not lose your place.
What it will not ask you for
- Passwords. There is no password field anywhere. It asks where your password manager is and how somebody would get into it, which does not go out of date the way a list of forty passwords does.
- Account numbers, card numbers or Social Security numbers. None of them are fields.
- Who gets what. There is no beneficiary field and no directive of any kind. Every prompt asks where a document is, never what it should say.
It is not a will
The Binder is a list of where things are. It is not a will, a trust or an advance directive, nothing in it decides who receives anything, and none of it is legal advice. Filling it in is not estate planning. If you do not have those documents, treat this as a prompt to get them.
What the nine sections cover
The documents. Money. Insurance. Property and keys. Digital life. Medical wishes. What you want to happen. Who to tell. Pets.
The printed copy
Export produces plain text, deliberately, so it is still readable in 2040 by somebody who has never heard of this app. It goes out through the share sheet, which reaches AirPrint and Save to Files. It is not a typeset PDF.
Other things worth knowing
- No attachments. There is nowhere to store a photograph or a scan of a document.
- Two devices at once. Sections save independently and the last write wins, so editing one section on two phones at once loses one of them.
Your data
Signing in is by an emailed code, so there is no password for the app itself. The server holds your email address, when the binder was created, which of the nine sections have something in them, and an unreadable block of characters for each one. The hosting provider holds that same block and cannot read it either.
Deleting from the Account tab removes the profile, the vault and everything in it immediately and for good. There is no backup and no grace period. Print a copy first. The full policy is at carrierpress.com/thebinder/privacy.
Contact
One person reads that, so a reply may take a few days.
The Binder is published by Jeffrey L Carrier.