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Vault Deletion

Necron Vault Manager provides controlled vault deletion with clear warnings and structured cleanup. You can delete individual storage locations from a vault or delete the entire vault along with all its locations and encrypted files.

Deleting a Storage Location

To remove a single storage location from a vault:

  1. Open the vault in the sidebar
  2. In the right-hand inspector panel, find the location you want to remove
  3. Click the Delete location action on the location card
  4. A warning modal appears:

If the vault has other locations:

"This will delete the [location type] 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?"

  1. Click NO to cancel, or YES, Delete to proceed

Warning

Deleting a location permanently removes all encrypted files at that storage path. The encrypted data at your other locations remains intact and unaffected.

What Happens When a Location Is Deleted

The deletion has two parts:

1. Dongle Configuration Update

  • The storage entry is removed from the vault configuration on the dongle
  • The vault's settings are updated accordingly

2. Filesystem Cleanup

The system removes encrypted data from the storage location:

  • The vault's encrypted folder at that location is recursively deleted
  • The parent folder is removed if it's now empty
  • Missing paths are treated as OK (already cleaned up)
  • Filesystem errors (permissions, locked files) are collected as warnings but do not prevent the configuration update

Note

The dongle configuration is always updated, even if filesystem cleanup encounters errors. This ensures the vault settings stay consistent. Any cleanup failures are reported as warnings — you may need to manually delete the remaining files.

Deleting an Entire Vault

To delete a vault and all its storage locations:

  1. Open the vault in the sidebar
  2. In the inspector panel, click the Delete vault button
  3. A warning modal appears:

"This will delete the entire vault, all mirror locations and all encrypted files. Are you sure?"

  1. Click NO to cancel, or YES, Delete to proceed

What Happens When a Vault Is Deleted

1. Dongle Configuration Update

  • The vault entry is removed from the dongle's configuration
  • All associated storage entries are also removed

2. Filesystem Cleanup (All Locations)

For each configured location:

  • The vault's encrypted folder is recursively removed
  • The parent folder is removed if empty
  • Errors are collected per-location and returned as warnings

After deletion, the vault disappears from the sidebar and inspector.

Important Considerations

Deletion Is Permanent

Danger

Vault deletion permanently destroys all encrypted files at all storage locations. There is no undo. If you need any files from the vault, decrypt and export them first before deleting.

MASTER Dongle Required

Only a MASTER dongle can delete vaults or locations. If you have only a SLAVE dongle connected, deletion actions are disabled in the UI.

SLAVE Dongles Are Not Updated

When you delete a vault from a MASTER dongle, the deletion only affects the MASTER's configuration. Any SLAVE dongles that have imported this vault will still show it in their vault list until the SLAVE re-imports or removes the vault entry.

Note

If a SLAVE dongle tries to open a vault whose storage locations have been deleted, the vault browser will show no files (the on-disk data is gone). The SLAVE user can safely remove the stale vault entry.

Encrypted Files Only

Vault deletion removes only the encrypted vault data. It does not affect:

  • Other vaults at the same storage location
  • Your original plaintext files (those were never stored in the vault)
  • The dongle's key material or pad data
  • Other applications' data at the same location

Recovering from Accidental Deletion

If you accidentally delete a vault:

  • If other locations still exist: The vault data may still be present at locations that were offline during deletion (filesystem cleanup skips offline locations). You may be able to recover by re-creating the vault and pointing it to the surviving location.
  • If all locations were online: The encrypted files are gone. However, your original plaintext files (if you kept them) are unaffected.
  • Cloud trash/versioning: Some cloud providers (Dropbox, Google Drive) keep deleted files in a trash folder for a limited time. Check your cloud provider's recovery options.

Next Steps