ShieldFive is a zero-knowledge, AI-free file manager built for people who can’t afford to be compromised. Your files are encrypted on your device before upload—so no one but you can read them. No scanning. No training. No backdoors. Just pure control.

Creating an account is quick and free. Click “Sign Up” in the top navigation, enter your email address and a strong master password, then verify your email. Once you’ve confirmed, you can log in and begin uploading files. Your master password unlocks your vault; each file has its own passphrase today (hybrid vault mode is on the roadmap).

After logging in, click “Upload” and select the files you want to store. You’ll be prompted to enter a password for each file. The encryption happens locally in your browser—ShieldFive never sees your plaintext. Once encrypted, the files are sent to our servers for storage. You can monitor progress and later download or share each file using its unique passphrase.

To share, select the encrypted file in your ShieldFive dashboard and click “Share.” You’ll generate a shareable link and set a separate link password (if desired), an expiration date, or download limit. Anyone with the URL and the link password can decrypt and download the file—no account needed. This means you can share sensitive documents without revealing your email or giving full account access.

Because we never hold your file-level keys, if you lose a password for a specific file, ShieldFive cannot decrypt it. You should back up each file’s passphrase in a secure password manager or hardware vault. Only the lost file is affected—every other file in your account remains encrypted and accessible with its own passphrase or vault key.

There is no recovery. Always store passphrases in a password manager or offline backup before uploading. The onboarding checklist and encryption modal require acknowledgment that we cannot restore lost keys.

Geolock restricts decryption to approved regions or countries. Even if someone gets the file link and password, it stays locked outside your allowed zone. It’s like a digital safe tied to a place—not just a password.

If the sender geofenced a link, only allowed country codes can access it. Ask the sender to add your country to the allowlist or disable geofencing for that link.

There is no restriction on overall storage usage beyond your plan’s quota. You can upload any file type—documents, images, videos, archives, etc. Today uploads are gated by your plan and backend limits; Free is intended for small documents, and larger uploads require a paid plan. The Supabase bucket is configured up to 500 GiB per file, but frontend and plan limits are enforced below that until we ship large-upload UX.

All encrypted files are stored in our centrally located EU data center. Regardless of where you or your recipients are located, your files remain encrypted at rest, and all decryption happens on your device. We never see unencrypted content—and by choosing a European data center, we keep your data under EU jurisdiction with robust security controls.

We’re rolling out TOTP-based 2FA soon. Until then, choose a strong password, store file passphrases securely, and sign out on shared devices. We’ll announce when 2FA is available in Settings → Security.

When you delete an encrypted file from ShieldFive, it moves to your “Trash” for 24 hours. During this grace period, the file remains recoverable if you change your mind. After 24 hours, the file is purged and its encrypted data is removed from our servers—then your used space reduces accordingly. You can also empty Trash manually to free up space immediately.

No. We don’t scan, index, or train models on your data. ShieldFive is fully zero-knowledge by design—not just policy.

Update billing details and retry. If it still fails, contact support with your invoice ID. We log failed billing events and retry; a customer portal for payment updates is coming soon.