This article applies to macOS and Windows.

Where is my Recovery Card?

macOS

You likely downloaded a Recovery Card if you enabled syncing in Arc for macOS at any time after January 18, 2024 or if you reset your Password after that same period. You were shown a screen similar to the below, which encouraged downloading a file before continuing:

• Your Recovery Card should be in your Downloads folder, unless you selected to save it elsewhere. 
  • You can access your Downloads folder by:
    • selecting the Finder app
    • selecting “Downloads” on the left side of the Finder app
    • and locating a file that has the name: ArcRecoveryPhrase.png

Windows

You can view your Recovery card in Arc for Windows by going to Arc menu > Settings, enabling Arc Sync and then clicking “Recovery Card”.

From there you can click Copy to copy our Recovery Phrase to your clipboard and paste it into a secure note or click Save to save the Recovery Phrase as a .txt file in your PC’s Documents folder.

When would I use my Recovery Card?

Your Recovery Card may be needed when you log in to your account on a new device after changing your password, and you have no access to other devices that have previously synced. 

• If it is required, you will be automatically prompted to enter it on the screen shown below:

• • This screen will appear when you sign in for the first time on a new device, only after changing your password.
  • If you have not changed your password, only the Recovery Card will be displayed for download. No data will need to be entered.
• You may alternatively be prompted with a toast (small notification banner) to go to Settings, and asked to click a button to enter more information, as shown below:
  
  • 
• If you skip these prompts, you will need to enter the information later:
  • Arc > Settings in the Mac menu bar
  • Select "Enter info" as shown below:
  • 
• If you just need your card to see the recovery phrase:
  • Arc > Settings in the Mac menu bar
  • Selecting “Recovery Card" as shown below
  • 

What if I don’t have my Recovery Card?

• • If you did not activate syncing in Arc, you will not have a Recovery Card.
    • If you are being asked for a Recovery Card but do not have one because you did not choose to sync your data, simply skip the step.
  • If you need to find your Recovery Card again, select:
    • • Arc > Settings in the Mac menu bar or Arc menu > Settings on Windows
      • Selecting “Recovery Card" as shown below
      • 
  • If you lose your Recovery Card, you will not be able to restore your old Sidebar data.
    • This is a security feature designed to protect you and keep your data private.
    • We do not have any means of recovering your data without the Recovery Card.
    • Please store your Recovery Card in a secure place to avoid losing your data.

Why do I need to provide my Recovery Card?

• • Your Recovery Card is a kind of secret key that will let you decrypt your sync data after you’ve changed your password.
  • It is part of the end-to-end encryption of your data - this means that only you have access to your data. Using a Recovery Card allows us to store your data in a way that ensures no-one - including BCNY - can read your member data.

Technical Details

To ensure both the privacy and confidentiality of our members, we want syncing to have full end-to-end encryption for all sidebar data. This design seeks to solve this while also keeping the user experience and performance in mind. The flow uses a combination of symmetric and asymmetric encryption which allows Arc to handle the encryption with speed.

What encryption algorithms do you use?

• We use Argon2 as the key-derivation function to generate the key to encrypt the public/private key pair.
• We use Libsodium sealed boxes for the asymmetric encryption which encrypts your data.

How can I find out more / I have other technical questions?

We welcome your questions! Please use "Contact the Team" at the bottom of this webpage, then select "Security/Privacy" and use the subject line: "Technical Detail Question about Arc Sync".