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Adding Locations

Each vault in Necron Vault Manager can have multiple storage locations — local folders, external drives, or cloud-synced directories. Adding more locations provides redundancy and enables the vault's self-healing capabilities: if a file is damaged or missing at one location, it can be automatically restored from another.

Supported Location Types

Type Description Example Path
Local Any folder on your computer, including external/removable drives C:\Vaults\Work or E:\Backup
Dropbox A folder inside your Dropbox sync directory C:\Users\You\Dropbox\NecronVault
Google Drive A folder inside your Google Drive sync directory C:\Users\You\Google Drive\NecronVault
OneDrive A folder inside your OneDrive sync directory C:\Users\You\OneDrive\NecronVault

Note

External and removable USB drives are selected using the Local option. There is no separate "External Drive" button — just pick the folder on the removable drive using the Local folder picker.

How Locations Work

All locations are mirrors — they hold identical copies of the same encrypted files. When you add a file to a vault, Necron Vault Manager writes the encrypted content to the primary location first, then replicates it to all other active, online locations.

Primary Location

The first location you add (or the first Local location, if present) is the primary (priority 0). The app reads from this location first for performance. If the primary is offline, it falls back to the next available location.

Online vs. Offline

A location is considered online if its folder path exists and is accessible. If a cloud sync folder is not mounted or a removable drive is not plugged in, that location appears as offline in the vault inspector. Offline locations are skipped during sync but will be repaired when they come back online.

Adding a Location to an Existing Vault

  1. Open the vault in the sidebar by clicking its name
  2. In the right-hand inspector panel, locate the Locations section
  3. Click Add Location
  4. Choose a provider type (Local, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive)
  5. Select the folder using the file picker
  6. The new location appears in the locations list with its type, path, and status

When a new location is added:

  • The vault's folder structure is created at the new path
  • All existing vault files are replicated to the new location
  • The dongle's vault configuration is updated with the new storage entry
  • An encrypted configuration snapshot is written to the new location for SLAVE import support

Tip

For best protection, use locations on different physical storage and different cloud providers. A local folder plus a Dropbox folder plus a Google Drive folder means your encrypted data survives even if two of the three are compromised.

Location Properties

Each location in the inspector shows:

Property Description
Kind Local, Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive
Display Name A human-readable label for the location
Locator The full filesystem path
Priority 0 = primary; higher numbers = secondary mirrors
Status Online (green) or Offline (red)

Deleting a Location

To remove a location from a vault:

  1. Click the Delete location action on the location card in the inspector
  2. An in-app warning modal appears:
    • If this is not the only location: "This will delete the remote mirror folder and all encrypted files. Are you sure?"
    • If this is the only location: "This is the only remote mirror folder for this vault. Removing this will delete the entire vault. Are you sure?"
  3. Click YES, Delete to confirm

Warning

Deleting a location permanently removes all encrypted files at that locator path. The encrypted data at other locations remains intact. If this is the only location, the entire vault is deleted.

What Happens During Deletion

  1. The storage entry is removed from the dongle's vault configuration
  2. The encrypted vault folder at that location is deleted from disk
  3. If the parent folder is now empty, it is also removed

If any filesystem errors occur (locked files, permission issues), the dongle configuration is still updated and the errors are returned as warnings. You may need to manually clean up the affected folders.

Location Limits and Recommendations

There is no hard limit on the number of locations per vault. However, keep in mind:

  • Sync time increases with each location — each file must be replicated to all active locations
  • Cloud sync depends on the provider's desktop client running and syncing the folder
  • Offline locations are not repaired until they come back online

A practical recommendation is 2–3 locations using different providers for most users.

Requirements

  • Only a MASTER dongle can add or remove locations. SLAVE dongles have read-only access.
  • The dongle must be connected when modifying location configuration.

Next Steps