Lexiy Notes FAQ

What data are kept about me?

Any data sent over the internet is encrypted with your secret password. Your account can be totally anonymous. When registering, you're asked for an email address. This is just used to create a unique account - you don't have to give your real email address!

What do you do with my email address?

Nothing. Only use it as a unique user id. We never send any email to this address, during registration or thereafter.

Does this website have any cookies or trackers?

No. We hate them too.

How to paste a note into the App?

From somewhere else, select and copy the text into the clipboard. Open Lexiy and press "+" to create note, press and hold on the input text region, "paste" will appear. Select it and the clipboard should paste.

How to transfer something into the App?

From another text app such as email, select share then choose Lexiy from the popup of app options. It will send the text to Lexiy as a new note.

How to transfer a note out of the App?

Tap on note to open it, then tap the share icon on the action bar. This will display a selection of hesitation apps that can receive it (eg email). Select the destination app and the note will be sent.

How do I create and use Projects?

You can create projects, which you can think of as groups, categories or folders for your notes, then organise your notes into these projects. This is an excellent way to organise your notes as their number increases.

Tap on the top left menu to open the sliding drawer. This drawer will list your projects, once you create them.

  • Manage Projects: Enable project management mode. In this mode, you can add and modify projects.
  • Add Project: Enter the name of your new project (eg "Shopping"), then press the check sign to confirm and close.
  • Done Management: Finishes the project management mode and takes you back to normal operation.

To modify or delete an existing project, manage projects then tap on the name of the project to amend its details. You can delete the project by tapping the trash icon inside the detail view.

Once created, your projects are listed on the sliding drawer. Tap on any of these projects to show their respective notes. The project named Unassigned represents the default view of notes without project assignment.

To assign a note to a project just swipe the note left. A popup will appear for you to chose the destination project.

How does the encryption work?

The encryption is performed by libsodium/NaCl, an established crypto library.

How can it show encrypted messages without the key?

Your master key is the password only you know. This is never transmitted or even stored by the app. When you enter your master key, Lexiy generates a derived cipher key from your master password + your email address. This derived key is the one used to encrypt/decrypt your notes.

Lexiy holds onto this cipher key as long as you let it. There's a setting to forget this key after a period of inactivity. Once forgotten, Lexiy will prompt you next time for your master key in order to recalculate the cipher key and access your notes.

How are the notes stored?

Your notes are stored in a "flat file database". Each account (you can have more than one), is stored in a file. This is a text file. With encryption disabled, you can even view this file directly (in something like notepad). With encryption enabled, your note bodies are encrypted then encoded base64. Each note is a JSON record with a "body". The "body" is your note itself. the JSON record contains other meta-data such as last modified time and whether the body is encrypted.

How does the server synchronise without decrypting the data?

The server does not need to decode the note record "body" in order to synchronise. It uses the last modify time of the record to know which is the latest version and to know which new or changed records to send you in a sync operation.

What data is sent when I register/login?

Your account consists of name, email and password. The email you provide for registration can be anything you like (no checking is performed). However, you must remember this email because it's part of your account login. You can be totally anonymous.

The password you enter for registration and login is your master key. this is used to derive a login key, which is the key actually sent to the server for registration. The master is never sent.

What data is sent when I synchronise?

Your email (which can be fake), your login key and your encrypted new and changed records, The server locates your account, authenticates you with your login key, then updates your database. Then it sends back in the sync reply all new and changed records from the server. Your app adds these to your local database.

Does it use SSL/TLS when connecting to the server?

Sure does!

How do I use Lexiy with a smart watch?

If you are using Android Wear, Lexiy will install an applet that is triggered by the voice phrase "take a note". You can dictate notes and they will be sent to Lexiy. You can also ask questions, for example say, "buy what" and you will get a list of notes containing the keyword "buy".

Will Lexiy be Open Source?

Yes. The plan is to open source Lexiy, bit by bit. I'll be opening the front end UI first, then the back end. If you want to know more about this, ask on the forum.

How do I know this app won't disappear taking my data with it?

The desktop versions will soon have a bulk import/export feature. You will be able to export your entire note-base as either an encrypted archive (for manual backup) or as plain text. Plain text export will mean, you can always recover your data even without the sync server. There'll be an export as .ics option for the calendar.

How can this app and storage be free?

Originally, I developed this app for my own requirement; a secure note store that didn't need to be online to access when I'm travelling. As a "yet another notes app", I don't think it's featured enough to ask money. Storage is cheap enough that I can offer lots of free accounts without additional cost because text notes are tiny. This is not a document storage service, which is why you can't attach pictures or files to notes.