Hosted quickstart
From signup to first filed letter: your passphrase, pairing your phone, and the first scan. About ten minutes, no terminal needed.
last updated 07 Jul 2026Sign up and choose a server
On the signup page you pick a tier — hosted or dedicated, both single-tenant machines in the EU — and create an account with an email address and password. The account signs you into billing and the dashboard; it is deliberately not the key to your archive. That comes next, and it stays with you.
The passphrase — the only key
During setup you choose the passphrase that encrypts everything your server stores. The key is derived from it on your server, where it stays — it never travels to us. We never see it, never store it, and cannot reset it.
There is no reset. A lost passphrase means the archive is unrecoverable — by anyone, including us. Write it down or download the recovery sheet before you continue; the setup screen won't let you past without confirming you have.
Pair your phone
Once your server is provisioned (usually under a minute), the setup screen shows a pairing code. Open the Briefkist app on your phone, choose "Pair with your server", and scan it. The phone receives its own device token that works only against your server; pairing codes expire after ten minutes, and you can mint a new one — or revoke a device — from the dashboard at any time.
File your first letter
Photograph any letter from today's pile. Your server reads it, understands it, and files it with a sender, date, summary and keywords — then it is searchable by words or by meaning. Correct any field inline if the model got something wrong.
Exactly what we can and cannot see along the way is written down, precisely, on the security page — it is short and worth the read before you trust us with your mail.