Everything behind the wall.

Your pattern is the key. You draw 7 to 25 dots on a 5×5 grid, and Brikwall turns that path into the key that unlocks your vault. Nothing that could check the pattern is ever saved: not the pattern, not a hash of it, not a hint.

• Over 25 dots there are vastly more possible patterns than on Android's 3×3 lock screen.
• A live strength meter looks at turns, jumps, crossings and how much of the grid you use. It's advice, never a rule: you choose.
• Creating a pattern is deliberate. You draw it, check it, draw it again to confirm, and finish with one practice unlock.
• "Hide pattern while drawing" stops anyone looking over your shoulder from seeing the path.
• Each guess runs Argon2id with 128 MiB of memory, which makes guessing slow even for fast computers.

Before your pattern becomes a key, it goes through a secret key that lives inside your phone's security chip and can never be exported. Brikwall uses StrongBox when the phone has it and the phone's secure environment otherwise.

That means a full copy of the phone's storage isn't enough to test a single guess. The guessing has to happen on your phone, at your phone's speed, with the wrong-attempt cooldowns in the way.

Where it stops: a few phones only offer software-backed key storage. Brikwall still encrypts everything the same way, but those phones don't get the hardware protection. The setup screen shows which kind your phone has.

Every vault can have a 12-word recovery phrase: 128 bits of randomness, the same standard crypto wallets use. If you forget your pattern, the phrase opens the vault and you set a new pattern.

• Copy to a password manager. The copy is marked sensitive so keyboards don't show or keep it, and the clipboard clears after 90 seconds.
• Print a recovery card with the words and a QR code. It goes straight to the print system; no file is ever written.
• Scan the card to recover. The camera reads the code in memory and ignores any other QR code.
• The phrase isn't stored anywhere. Lose it, and Settings → Recovery phrase makes a new one while the vault is open.
• It also opens your backups on a brand-new phone, because it doesn't depend on the old phone's hardware.

Each pattern opens its own vault, and Brikwall never shows a list of them. Make one for photos, one for work documents, and a dull one you'd be happy to show someone. Create more from "New vault" on the lock screen.

On disk, vaults are mixed in with dummy files that look exactly like real ones and are rewritten together after every change. Someone examining the files can't tell how many vaults there are, which files belong to which, or which key files are real.

Why the free plan has no vault limit: to enforce one, the app would have to count your vaults, and that count would show that more than one exists.

For the moment someone makes you unlock your phone. You set up a special pattern that opens a decoy vault. Drawing it silently erases every other vault on the phone in the same instant.

• Every key file and encrypted chunk except the decoy's own is deleted, and new dummies take their place.
• The hardware key is destroyed and replaced, so leftover copies of old data in flash memory can't be opened either.
• Break-in records are erased too.
• Nothing on screen changes: the decoy simply opens, like any vault.

Where it stops: backups you already saved elsewhere aren't touched by a duress wipe. They still need the matching recovery phrase to open.

When someone draws a wrong pattern, the front camera takes one photo with no preview and nothing changing on screen. You choose whether the first photo comes after 1, 2 or 3 wrong tries. After that it's every third try, up to three photos in a row.

• Each record (photo, time and number of tries) is encrypted with its own key, sealed by your phone's security chip. Location data is removed from the photo.
• You see alerts the next time you open a real vault. A duress decoy never shows them.
• Android shows its camera dot for a moment while the photo is taken. That's the system's rule, and we don't try to hide it.
• No camera permission? The attempt is still logged, just without a photo.

Change how Brikwall appears on your home screen: as Calculator, Notes, Weather or Clock, with a matching name in the app switcher. You can rename it to anything and pin a home-screen shortcut with that name.

Turn on the calculator cover and the app opens as a real, working calculator. Hold = for one second to reveal the pattern pad.

Where it stops: a disguise is for casual glances, not a lock. Android still lists the app under its real name in Settings → Apps. The pattern is what actually protects your files.

Shoot photos and video from inside the vault. They're encrypted as they're captured and never appear in your gallery, so there's no original to remember to delete.

• Photos are captured in memory and re-encoded, which removes all EXIF data: location, device and time.
• Videos record into a memory-only file that has no path and that no other app can open. They're sealed when you stop. (Video needs Android 11 or newer, and recordings are capped at 400 MB.)
• Swipe left or right to switch between photo and video.
• If the vault locks mid-recording, the recording is thrown away rather than half-saved.

Add photos and videos with Android's photo picker, or any file through Files. Brikwall never asks for access to your whole gallery: you choose exactly what it sees.

After importing, Brikwall can delete the originals through Android's own confirmation screen, which shows you exactly what will be removed (Android 11 and newer). Files stream straight into encryption; no readable copy is ever written to storage.

A proper gallery: month sections, sorting, favorites and multi-select. The viewer zooms and pans, swipes between items, and swipes down to close. Videos stream straight out of the encrypted chunks, with seeking and custom controls. Nothing is decrypted to a file, even temporarily.

The free plan holds 100 photos and 10 videos per vault. Pro removes both limits, and files of any other kind are never limited.

Open documents without exporting a readable copy:

• PDF: every page, with pinch and double-tap zoom (Android 11 and newer).
• Word (.docx, .odt): headings, bold and italic, lists and tables.
• Markdown: headings, lists, checklists, quotes, code and tables.
• Text and data: .txt, .csv, .json, .xml, .yaml, logs and source code.

Documents are decrypted into memory only. Links aren't followed, because Brikwall can't reach the internet except to check purchases. Other kinds of file can be stored, and exported when you choose.

Group photos, videos and files into albums, and star favorites. Album names and settings live inside the vault's encrypted index, not in app settings, so they reveal nothing about what's inside.

Tap Back up now and Brikwall makes one sealed .bwbk file. Send it to Google Drive through the share sheet, or save it to any folder. Nothing is decrypted to make it, and Brikwall itself never uploads anything: Drive (or whichever app you pick) does that.

• On a new phone: install Brikwall, choose "I have a vault" → Restore, pick the file, enter your 12 words, and set a new pattern.
• Opening the file straight from Google Drive works too.
• The file is checked from end to end before anything is replaced.
• Home shows a gentle reminder when you haven't backed up in a while.

Where it stops: backups are full copies, not automatic or incremental. Backups made before you replace your recovery phrase still open with the old phrase.

Switch apps or turn off the screen and the vault locks instantly. Keys are wiped from memory. Screenshots and screen recordings come out black, and the recent-apps preview is blank. Rotating the phone or switching dark mode doesn't lock you out.

Android's own backup and device-to-device transfer are switched off for Brikwall's data, so your vault never ends up in someone else's cloud by accident.

A wrong pattern says "Wrong pattern". There's no fake empty vault to confuse you. After five misses the pad pauses for 30 seconds, and each further miss doubles the wait, up to an hour. Changing the clock doesn't shorten a wait, and only a correct pattern resets the count.

Use your fingerprint or face to get back in quickly after a short break. The vault key is wrapped by a key that only a strong biometric can release, and it's held only in memory. Restart the phone or the app, and your pattern is required again. Enrolling a new fingerprint cancels quick unlock.

Brikwall only goes online to check Pro purchases with our billing provider, RevenueCat. The app's network settings trust no one else, so a connection to any other server fails, whatever code tries it. Plain unencrypted connections are refused, and certificates you install yourself (the kind snooping proxies use) are never trusted.

There are no ads, no analytics and no crash reporting. The advertising ID permission is removed from the app.