AmberKeyGetting started: the 30-minute setup
Most of your digital life hangs off four things: your password manager, your Google account, your Apple account, and your phone number. Cover those and you’ve covered the resets, the inboxes, and the second factors for almost everything else. That’s the first session, and it takes about half an hour.
Create your free account Free forever to plan. Open it in another tab and follow along.
Before you start
- Have your phone and your computer within reach.
- Know (or be ready to look up) which password manager you use, and your mobile carrier.
- You don’t need to decide your full recovery circle yet. One trusted person is enough to begin; you can grow the circle later.
Minute 0–5: create your vault
Sign up and let the app generate your vault key. This happens on your device; we never see it. You’ll finish this first session by printing cards and exporting your first continuity bundle. The app won’t let you forget.
Minute 5–12: your password manager
Your password manager is the master key to everything that isn’t covered by a native mechanism, so it goes first.
- Bitwarden: set up Emergency Access (a native after-I’m-gone mechanism, and an excellent one). Follow the Bitwarden playbook.
- 1Password: download a fresh Emergency Kit, write the account password on it, and escrow it in your vault. Follow the 1Password playbook.
- Anything else, including Apple Keychain: the generic password-manager playbook covers it.
Either way, AmberKey records a card for the account (Layer 1: which manager, which email) and, where the playbook says so, escrows the master credential in the vault (Layer 2).
Minute 12–20: Google
Set up Google’s Inactive Account Manager, Google’s own dead man’s switch. You choose trusted contacts and what they receive after a period of inactivity you set. The Google playbook has the exact clicks, the gotchas (Workspace accounts are excluded), and what your survivors do if you skip this step.
Minute 20–27: Apple
Add a Legacy Contact on your iPhone or Mac, print the access key as a PDF, and escrow that key in your vault. This is the difference between a web form and a court order for your photos. The Apple playbook walks through it, including the Keychain limitation everybody trips on.
Minute 27–30: your phone
Your phone number receives everyone else’s reset codes, so it must not die with you. Create a card for your carrier: account holder, last-4, and the standing instruction cancel this line last. Escrow your account PIN and your device passcode in the vault. Details in the phone-carrier playbook.
Finish: print and export
The app now walks you through:
- Choosing a circle template: even a starter circle of one or two people. (You’ll refine it in setting up your recovery circle.)
- Printing your kit: cards and instruction sheets, at home. (How printing works.)
- Exporting your first continuity bundle: one encrypted file; keep a copy where your executor would look.
What’s next
Add accounts over time (banks, credit cards, crypto wallets), each guided by a playbook. None of it is urgent anymore: the four keys above are the ones that open the other doors. When your setup feels real, run a fire drill and see the whole thing work end to end.