VaultSort 5.8.0

What's New

AI Connections (Mac): VaultSort's MCP server

• Let AI apps work with your files, safely. A new page, Settings › AI Connections, connects AI apps such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code and Cursor to your files through VaultSort's own MCP server. Make a connection, then click Set up Claude Desktop or Set up Cursor. VaultSort adds it to that app and keeps a backup of the app's settings file. For Claude Code, copy the command shown.
• It only sees what you give it. A connection can see nothing until you give it a folder, and it only ever sees the folders you give it. It can never reach your Library, system folders, the Trash, other users' files or the Vault, and you can't give it your whole startup disk or the Users folder. You can take folders back or remove a connection at any time. If VaultSort isn't running when an AI app needs it, it opens in the background.
• Reading contents is your choice. A connected AI app can list your folders and search them by name, type, date and size. It can read what's inside files only in folders where you turn on Contents, which is off by default. It can read text, code, CSV, JSON, HTML, PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. Before the AI app sees a file, VaultSort replaces passwords, keys and tokens, payment card numbers, IBANs and US Social Security numbers with labelled placeholders, unless you turn on Show sensitive details for that connection. Files that are themselves secrets, such as private keys, .env files, credential files and password-manager exports, are never read. Detection can miss things, and the AI app is told so.
• Every change is a plan you can undo. An AI app can propose a plan to move, rename or copy files, create folders, and move items to the Trash. VaultSort checks every step and then makes exactly the plan it checked. A plan never deletes anything permanently and never replaces an existing file. VaultSort asks you before applying a plan of more than 50 changes or a plan that moves items to the Trash. Don't Allow is the default, and a question left unanswered counts as no. Each applied plan appears in Recent Activity as "AI connection: ", and you can undo it from there. Plans also work on USB drives and SD cards.
• Help with the rest of VaultSort.
  • Duplicates. An AI app can find files with identical contents in its folders. It compares only files in folders where Contents is on, and it changes nothing.
  • Space Saver. It can see how much Space Saver could free (sizes only, never file locations) and ask you to clean. Nothing is cleaned until you click Clean.
  • Scheduled Jobs. It can list your scheduled jobs and their history, do a dry run, and turn a job off. It can ask to turn a job on, delete one, make a new one, change one it made, or run one now. Each of those waits for your approval in VaultSort. Jobs made by an AI app only move and rename files, so every run can be undone. They show Made by in Scheduled Jobs, and runs it asked for show asked by .
  • Safety Net. Before an AI app's first change in a protected folder, VaultSort makes a restore point. An AI app can make a restore point before risky work and ask you to restore. Restoring is always your decision.
• Connection keys stay out of reach. Each connection's key is kept in your Mac's Keychain, never in an AI app's settings file where an agent could read it. Rotate Key gives a connection a new key and stops the old one working.
• AI apps know their limits. A connected AI app is told what it can and can't do through VaultSort. It can never securely delete files.
• Pricing. Searching, reading, previewing, finding duplicates and undoing are free. Applying plans is free for 5 plans, then needs Premium, as do making, changing or running a scheduled job.
• AI Connections aren't available on Windows yet.

Safety Net (Mac)

• A private history of the folders you choose. A new page, Protect › Safety Net, keeps a history of the folders you choose. If an app, a script or an AI agent deletes or rewrites your files, you can put them back. The history is kept by VaultSort's helper where programs running as you, including AI agents, can't read, change or delete it.
• It notices when something goes wrong. When many files in a protected folder are deleted or changed at once, VaultSort offers to restore the folder as it was just before. If VaultSort isn't open, it opens by itself. Leave As Is keeps things as they are, and Not Now asks again later.
• Restore any moment. Restore… lists each folder's restore points: before a burst of changes, before an AI connection's first change, and before a restore. Restoring puts the whole folder back in place, keeps files created since, and can itself be undone.
• Only you can switch it off. Turning Safety Net off for a folder deletes its history, and macOS asks for your password first, so no app or agent can do it on its own.
• Secure Delete can erase the history too. When something you securely delete, encrypt with "delete original", or move to the Vault is in a protected folder, VaultSort asks whether to erase its earlier versions from Safety Net's history as well. Erase History and Delete asks for your password, has VaultSort's helper overwrite and remove those copies, and then deletes. Delete, Keep History deletes and leaves the earlier versions restorable. If the history can't be fully erased, VaultSort tells you.
• The details. History is kept for 30 days. The free version protects one folder and shows alerts. Premium protects as many folders as you like. Restoring is always free. Safety Net needs VaultSort's helper, which the page offers to install, and works on folders on your Mac's internal disk. It isn't a backup: the history is on the same disk, so it doesn't survive a disk failure, and a file created and deleted within a few seconds may be missed. Safety Net isn't available on Windows yet.

More in 5.8

• Organization Recovery Key (Business). A business can now recover files, folders and Vaults that its people encrypt with a security key, with no server, and VaultSort never holds a key. An administrator sets up the organization under Security Keys › Organization, prints a recovery sheet for the firm's safe, and gives the team the organization's policy file to import. From then on, everything a member's computer encrypts with a security key can also be opened with the organization's own security key or the printed sheet. Files encrypted before joining can be added from the same section. Password-encrypted files can't be recovered this way. Creating, managing or joining an organization needs a Business licence, but recovering files never does. (Once a computer has joined, the files and Vaults it encrypts open only in VaultSort versions that support organization recovery. The join dialog shows the version required, so update every computer before joining.)
• A simpler Smart Categorize. The wizard now has three steps: Folders, Categories, and Preview & save. Suggested categories come from your own files, not from the insides of apps and software folders, and larger folders get more suggestions. You can edit and delete saved category sets. When you delete one, VaultSort names the jobs that use it. Files that don't clearly fit a category stay where they are by default. You can stop a preview at any time, and a stopped preview is never run.
• Drop files to Secure Delete. When you drag files over the VaultSort window, Secure Delete now appears beside Organize and Protect. Dropped files go to the usual confirmation, up to 50 at a time.
• Tables and find in Vault notes. In Edit view, tables appear as cells you can type in, with Tab to move between cells and buttons to add a row or column. A find bar works in every view, from ⌘F or Ctrl+F. When every selected file is a Markdown or text file, Make a note copies them into new notes and keeps the originals.

Improvements

• Secure Delete asks about locked files first. Duplicate Finder, Secure, Large File Finder and Storage Map now check first, including inside folders, and ask whether to Unlock and Delete, Skip Them or Cancel. Anything VaultSort unlocked but didn't delete is locked again afterwards. If VaultSort's helper is still waiting for your approval in Login Items, VaultSort tells you and offers a way forward. When files can't be deleted, the reason is given in plain words, and after 5 failures in a row VaultSort stops and tells you how many files it didn't try.
• Secure Delete tells you what it couldn't fully erase. A file that has another name elsewhere on the disk (a hard link) can't have its data overwritten without overwriting the other name's too. VaultSort now removes this name, leaves the data, and reports the file as not securely erased instead of as done. System folders such as .fseventsd and .Trashes on a drive, which are removed with their folder rather than overwritten, are now named in a notice after the delete.
• Deleting the original after encrypting is checked up front. When you've chosen to delete the original after encrypting or decrypting, VaultSort checks the originals before it starts, and offers Unlock and Delete After, Keep It or Cancel for any that are Locked or read-only. Password encryption now tells you when an original couldn't be deleted.
• Turning on a scheduled job waits for its schedule. Creating, editing or turning on a scheduled job no longer runs it immediately. It runs at its next scheduled time, or when files arrive in a watched folder. Run Now runs it straight away. The option when creating a job now reads Turn on after creating.
• Manage your scheduled jobs without Premium. Without Premium, you can still open Scheduled Jobs to turn your existing jobs on and off, delete them, and see their history. Making and editing jobs, and Run Now, still need Premium.
• Run All tells you when a job didn't run. A job that Advanced Organize's Run All skipped now shows as Not run, with the reason, instead of a green "0 files". In Dry Run, warnings that stop a run are listed first and marked Stops the run:.
• Apps are handled as single items. Advanced Organize, Smart Categorize and scheduled runs no longer look inside apps, packages, or software folders such as node_modules and .git. On a Mac, each app or plug-in is a single item in every preview and every run, so a rule can move or rename an app as a whole. Apps are never copied, and a rule that checks file size leaves them alone. The preview says when this happens. (Check the Dry Run of jobs that cover folders containing apps.)
• Auto Organize: change the folder in place. Click Change… to pick another folder without leaving Auto Organize. Cancelling the folder picker no longer clears your choice.
• Clearer privacy wording. The Home page now says that nothing in your files is sent anywhere unless you turn on a cloud AI provider or connect an AI app. The AI settings no longer claim Ollama always keeps everything on your computer: that's true for a model downloaded to it, not for Ollama's cloud models. The privacy policy names the two optional features that send information out.
• "Preparing the update…" After an update downloads, macOS unpacks and checks it before it can install. That can take a minute on older Macs, and the update card now says so instead of sitting at 100%.

Bug Fixes

• Advanced Organize's runs now match its preview. Running a job from Advanced Organize, on a schedule, or when files arrive could give different results. Now they match:
  • Some date rules that never matched in scheduled and watch runs now match.
  • .ts files count as code, not video.
  • A rule that renames and then moves a file moves it under its new name.
  • A rule that copies and then moves, renames or trashes acts on the original.
  • Numbered renames ({counter}) show their real numbers in the preview, and the run gives the same files the same numbers.
  • A file-path rule that a scheduled run can't evaluate is refused before the run, with the reason shown.
• Excluded folders stay excluded. Dry Run, the run that followed it, scheduled runs and watched jobs could all include files from excluded folders in some cases. They now leave them alone.
• Overlapping folders are processed once. A scheduled job whose folders overlap could act on the same file twice. Each file is now handled once.
• Moving apps works. Moving an app with a rule failed and left a temporary folder behind. Apps now move as a whole, and are never put in place of something that's already there.
• USB drives and SD cards. Files moved or copied onto FAT32 or exFAT drives were given the current date, so age rules treated them as new. They now keep their modified date. Renaming files with accented names on exFAT and FAT32 drives now works directly. A placeholder file left behind by an interrupted move is removed at the next start.
• Renames can always be undone. When the second step of a two-step rule failed and VaultSort couldn't reverse the first step's rename, that rename was left without an undo record. It now stays in History & Undo.
• File names are used exactly as they are. A file name containing characters such as $& could come out mangled in rename and move templates. A template that produced a . or .. folder could put files outside the folder you chose. That is now refused, with a warning in the preview.
• Scheduled jobs no longer replace files without your permission. A scheduled or watch job that sorts into category folders with "replace existing files" could replace files even when Allow overwrite actions during scheduled/watch automation was off. Such jobs are now turned off and marked as needing attention.
• Space Saver cleans only what a category describes. Categories with an age limit, such as Application Logs, could clean whole folders, including today's crash reports. They now remove only matching items older than the limit, and the size shown is what a clean frees.
• Smart Categorize no longer crashes or freezes. Clicking "Use N categories" could crash VaultSort, and a preview of tens of thousands of files froze the app and couldn't be stopped.
• Move to Vault does exactly what it shows. Dropping more files, switching between Move and Copy, or closing the sheet while VaultSort was checking Safety Net could run the earlier move, or report the wrong result. Move to Vault now only ever runs the move its open sheet shows.
• Vault fixes. In the file preview, the Make a note and Send securely buttons couldn't be clicked, and the window buttons covered the file name. Moving an open note into another folder now closes it and tells you where it went.
• Secure Delete no longer waits forever. A named pipe or socket in a folder could make Secure Delete hang, and the confirm button could stay disabled if a drive check never answered. Both are fixed.
• Ollama on another computer is recognised. Some addresses that only look local, such as 127.0.0.1.nip.io, were treated as this computer, so the Ollama settings didn't warn about another computer and redaction suggestions could send a document's text there. Now only addresses that really are this computer count as local.
• Windows: on-device AI models install reliably. Installing an AI model on Windows could fail at the last step on a busy computer.

Security

• VaultSort can't be used to run other programs' code. Another program on your computer could start VaultSort in a mode that ran that program's own code with VaultSort's permissions, including Full Disk Access. That mode is now switched off on Mac and Windows. On Mac, VaultSort and its AI connection relay are also signed so that another program can't load its own code into them.
• Windows: every part of VaultSort is signed. The image libraries used by on-device AI features on Windows are now signed, like the rest of VaultSort.