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Why No Password Recovery

If you lose your password, we cannot reset it for you. This isn’t a policy choice or a missing feature. It’s architecturally impossible.

Here’s why: Your password never leaves your device. When you sign in, your password derives an encryption key locally (using Argon2id). That key decrypts your data. The server only ever sees encrypted blobs - unreadable gibberish without your key.

We don’t have a copy of your password. We don’t have a copy of your key. We don’t have any way to decrypt your data. By design.

What this means practically

If you lose your password and you don’t have a recovery password set up, your encrypted data is gone. Permanently. No support ticket, no account verification process, no technical backdoor will help. The encryption is real.

This is the same model used by Signal, ProtonMail, 1Password’s secret key, and other tools with genuine end-to-end encryption. If they could recover your data without your password, so could an attacker with access to their servers.

Why this is actually a good thing

Most services can reset your password because they can decrypt your data. That means:

  • Employees can access your data (accidentally or intentionally)
  • Law enforcement can compel them to hand over your data
  • A server breach gives attackers access to your data
  • You’re trusting them to protect your privacy

With Lithium, none of that is possible. Your data is encrypted with a key derived from your password, on your device. We never see it. We built it this way on purpose.

The tradeoff is honest: genuine privacy means genuine responsibility. You control your data. That includes not losing access to it.

What you should do

Set up a recovery password. This is a backup key that can unlock your data if you forget your main password. It works the same way - derives the same encryption key - but it’s separate.

See Recovery Password for how to set one up and where to store it.

Also consider using a password manager. They’re designed for this. 1Password, Bitwarden, and others have solved the “remember one strong password” problem.

The technical reason (if you’re curious)

Your password goes through Argon2id key derivation (~500ms, deliberately slow to resist brute force) to produce a master key. That master key decrypts your encryption key, which decrypts all your content.

The server only stores:

  • Your encrypted encryption key (wrapped with your master key)
  • The salt used for key derivation
  • An auth hash (one-way hash of your master key, used to verify you during login)

None of those can be reversed to get your password or decrypt your data. The math only works one way: password → keys → decryption. Not backwards.

If you lose your password, the server can’t help because it never had the ability to decrypt your data in the first place.