---
title: "The recovery kit"
url: https://storagestudio.us/wiki/the-recovery-kit
category: "Delta Drive, Delta Trust & My Drive"
tags: ["delta trust", "recovery kit", "backups", "restore"]
summary: "Your recovery kit is a page of 24 words made when you create your Delta Trust vault. It is the only way to reach your backups if your Mac is lost, replaced or repaired. Storage Studio keeps no copy and cannot recover it for you."
updated: 2026-10-01T05:34:11.000Z
---

# The recovery kit

Your recovery kit is a page of 24 words made when you create your Delta Trust vault. It is the only way to reach your backups if your Mac is lost, replaced or repaired. Storage Studio keeps no copy and cannot recover it for you.

Your **recovery kit** is a page of 24 numbered words, made when you create your [Delta Trust](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/delta-trust) vault. Those words are the only way to reach your vault if this Mac is lost, replaced or repaired. Storage Studio does not keep a copy and cannot recover it for you.

## Why it matters so much

Your backups are encrypted on your Mac with a key made from your kit, and that key never reaches us. That is what makes "only you can read your backups" true. It also means there is no account recovery, no support reset and no "verify your identity and we'll restore it". If you lose both the kit and the Mac, nobody can open your backups — including Storage Studio.

## Saving it when you create your vault

The kit comes before the vault is created, and setup won't continue until you have shown you have it:

1. Choose **Print…** or **Save PDF…**.
2. Under **Check you really have it**, type the three words the screen asks for, by number. This is the only way to be sure the page you saved is readable.
3. Tick the box that reads "I understand that if I lose this kit and this Mac, my backups cannot be recovered by anyone — including Storage Studio.", then choose **Create my vault**.

## Keeping it safe

- Keep it somewhere safe and private, and away from the Mac it protects. A kit stored only on that Mac is lost with it.
- Treat the page like a key, because that is what it is. If you saved the PDF, keep that file somewhere private too.
- The words are ordinary English words, and the first four letters of each are enough to tell it apart, so a smudged print is usually still readable.

## When you need it

You need the kit to reconnect to your vault on a new Mac, or on this Mac after it has been repaired or replaced. Choose **I have a recovery kit** on the Delta Trust card in **Data Backup**, or **Restore it with your recovery kit** on the **Delta Drive** tab.

```mermaid
%% caption: Reconnecting to your vault with the recovery kit
flowchart TD
  A[I have a recovery kit] --> B[Enter eight words at a time, in numbered order]
  B --> C{Do all 24 words check out together?}
  C -->|Yes| D[Reconnect: this Mac can reach your vault again]
  C -->|No| E[Check the numbering on your page and try again]
  E --> F{Too many wrong tries?}
  F -->|Yes| G[Entering a kit pauses for a while, your vault is untouched]
  F -->|No| B
```

*Flowchart — Reconnecting to your vault with the recovery kit. Outline:*

- I have a recovery kit
  - leads to Enter eight words at a time, in numbered order
- Enter eight words at a time, in numbered order
  - leads to Do all 24 words check out together?
- Do all 24 words check out together?
  - Yes: leads to Reconnect: this Mac can reach your vault again
  - No: leads to Check the numbering on your page and try again
- Check the numbering on your page and try again
  - leads to Too many wrong tries?
- Too many wrong tries?
  - Yes: leads to Entering a kit pauses for a while, your vault is untouched
  - No: leads to Enter eight words at a time, in numbered order

You enter the words eight at a time, in the order they are numbered on your page, or paste all 24 at once. A word that isn't a recovery word is pointed out straight away, by number. Whether the whole kit is right can only be known once all 24 are in, so the screen says the words "look like kit words" until then rather than claiming they are correct.

After a few wrong tries, entering a kit pauses for a while. This is deliberate: it stops someone working through guesses at a kit they part-remember. Nothing has been lost — your vault and everything in it are untouched.

See also: [Delta Trust](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/delta-trust), [Restoring from a backup](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/restoring-from-a-backup), [Delta Trust, Delta Drive and My Drive](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/delta-trust-delta-drive-and-my-drive).

## What links here

- [Delta Trust](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/delta-trust)
- [Delta Trust, Delta Drive and My Drive](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/delta-trust-delta-drive-and-my-drive)
- [The backup passphrase](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/the-backup-passphrase)
- [Using your licence on a new Mac](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/moving-to-a-new-mac)
- [What backup messages mean](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/backup-messages)
- [Where a backup can go](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/backup-destinations)