Key Rotation

Key rotation lets you change your master encryption keys while keeping access to all your existing photos.

When to rotate

Rotate your keys if:

• You suspect your recovery phrase has been seen or compromised.
• You want to follow periodic security best practices.
• You’ve removed someone from a sensitive person-group and want extra assurance of forward secrecy.

How to rotate

1. Go to Settings.
2. Find the Encryption keys section.
3. Tap Rotate keys.
4. You’ll be given a new recovery phrase.

Write it down

Your new recovery phrase replaces the old one — the old phrase will no longer work for recovery. Store it securely, just as you did the original.

What happens behind the scenes

Rotation generates a fresh keypair on your device and uploads your new public key and a newly wrapped seed — the server never sees any plaintext key material. Your existing photos stay accessible because the per-group content keys are re-wrapped to your new key, not regenerated.

For the groups you share with other people, that re-wrapping is done by each group’s administrators as their devices pick up the rotation request, so access to shared groups is restored as those requests are processed rather than all at once. Your own photos and your personal data are available again immediately.