VaultSort 5.5.0

What's New

• AI that never leaves your Mac: Apple Intelligence and Ollama. Build with AI, Revise and the Storage Advisor can now run entirely on your own computer. Pick Apple Intelligence to use the model built into macOS, with nothing to download, no account and no API key, or point VaultSort at Ollama to run the open model of your choice, such as Llama, Qwen or Mistral. Your file names, folders and requests stay on your machine, it works offline, and it costs nothing per request. OpenAI, Anthropic and Gemini are still there when you want them. (Apple Intelligence needs a Mac with Apple Intelligence turned on in System Settings; Ollama runs on Mac and Windows once it's installed.)
• On-device first, your provider when it's needed. When Apple Intelligence is ready, Settings offers an on-device-first switch for each feature: VaultSort tries the local model first and hands off to the provider you chose only when a request is too big for it.
• AI-built jobs are checked before you can save them. Every answer from every model, local or cloud, now goes through the same checks: the rules are validated, compared against what you actually asked for, and repaired once if something is off. A job that still looks wrong is held back with the reasons shown, and opens only once you've read them.
• An AI can never add a delete or an overwrite behind your back. If a built or revised job deletes, trashes or overwrites files, VaultSort always tells you, whatever the request said. If it removed a delete you did ask for, it says that too.
• Open an existing Vault. If your Vault isn't where VaultSort expects it, for example after a reinstall, on a new Mac, or after you renamed its folder, point VaultSort at a folder and it finds every Vault inside. It shows when each was made and which unlock methods will work on this computer, then opens the one you choose.
• A Vault on a drive that isn't connected is no longer mistaken for no Vault at all. VaultSort now says it can't reach your Vault, names the folder, and offers Try again, Locate it… or Start a new Vault instead. It checks again by itself when you come back to the window, so plugging the drive back in is usually all it takes.
• Security keys and Touch ID now survive a reinstall. A key's details are stored inside the Vault itself, so the same physical key or Touch ID opens your Vault even after VaultSort's settings are lost or on a new Mac, with the key's signature still checked. (Unlock once with your key on this version to record its details. A Vault opened by 5.5.0 can no longer be opened by 5.4 or earlier, which will say it was made by a newer VaultSort.)
• Safer unlock methods. A Vault with only one way in, or whose only ways in depend on this computer's settings, now shows a reminder to add a recovery code or password. Skipping the backup method when you create a Vault asks first. A key that can't be used on this computer explains why on the lock screen and offers to import a key backup.
• One recovery code and one password per Vault. Adding a new one now replaces the old one, and the old one stops working, so an exposed code is really retired. (If your Vault already has two recovery codes or two passwords, Vault settings points it out: use Replace to end up with one.)
• Back up, export everything, and delete a Vault. Back up… makes a verified, encrypted copy of the whole Vault in a folder you choose. Export everything… writes every file and note out unencrypted with its folders, using names that work on any drive. Delete this Vault… removes it after you type DELETE, never touching anything else in its folder, with an option to securely erase its keys.
• Check and repair a Vault. Vault settings can now check that every item is where it should be, with a quick or a full check, recover files nothing points to into a Recovered items folder, remove entries whose files are gone, and rebuild the Vault's list if it is damaged.
• Several Vaults. Keep separate Vaults, for example Personal and Work, each with its own unlock methods, and switch between them from the Vault page. One is open at a time, and switching locks the open one first. (Creating another Vault needs a licence, like creating the first one.)
• One Vault, one computer at a time. A Vault on a shared drive can't be opened by two computers or two user accounts at once. If it was left open somewhere that crashed, VaultSort checks and then offers to open it anyway.
• A heads-up when your Vault's folder starts syncing. VaultSort now re-checks where your Vault lives and warns you, with a Move… button, if it ends up somewhere that syncs, such as iCloud Desktop & Documents, OneDrive, Syncthing or Nextcloud. Sync can corrupt a Vault. It only warns: your Vault always opens.
• Clearer warnings when something in the Vault was recovered. If the Vault had to fall back to an earlier copy of its list or header, or set aside a damaged record, it now says so when you unlock it.
• VaultSort now looks like a Mac app. Every page sits on neutral graphite, the sidebar uses the same translucent material as Finder and Mail, and dialogs look like macOS sheets, with a plain header, a blue default button and Mac-style switches. Organize, Clean and Protect each have their own slow 3D artwork, which holds still with Reduce Motion. The launch screen has been redrawn, and folders are Finder blue. Nothing has moved: every page and button is where it was.
• A real Mac menu bar. The VaultSort menu has About VaultSort, Settings… (⌘,), Check for Updates… and Upgrade or Activate License…. Help has What's New, Send Feedback… and the Privacy Policy.
• All Tools is complete. Empty Folders, Large Files and Free Up Space now appear there too, and the Organize, Clean and Protect headings take you to those pages.
• YubiKey Settings is easier to find your way around. It now has categories down the left (Security Keys, Recovery Code, Key Sync, Encryption), one short explanation of primary and backup keys instead of three, and calmer key rows.
• Calmer Scheduled Jobs, System Resources and Advanced Organize. The task editor and System Resources are now macOS sheets, actions follow one quiet style where Delete only turns red when you point at it, and callouts drop their thick coloured stripes.
• The Dry Run preview is readable with many files. The list now scrolls instead of squeezing every row to a sliver. Click a row to see its full name, path, destinations and the rules it matched, and use the arrow keys to move through the results.
• Disabled Vault buttons say why. Pointing at a greyed-out Back up… or Export everything… now tells you what to do, such as locking the Vault to back it up.

Bug Fixes

• AI-built Smart Categorize jobs can be saved again. Jobs built with AI that sorted files into category folders were refused when you tried to save them.
• A coloured note keeps its colour when you edit it. Saving changes to a note's text reset its colour.
• Long release notes no longer make What's New scroll sideways. Topic tags now wrap onto as many lines as they need.