Your identity & recovery

Your Syncropel identity is one portable identity that follows you everywhere. The same identity owns your content whether you reach it from your laptop, your phone, the web, or a self-hosted instance. Nothing you create is tied to a single device — it's tied to you.

This page explains what your identity is, how it stays the same across devices, and how to back it up so you never lose access.

One identity, many devices

When you sign in — on the web at syncropel.com or by connecting spl on a machine you maintain — you get the same identity every time. Signing in on a brand-new device gives you back the same identity, with the same content, automatically. There's no per-device setup and nothing to copy between machines for everyday use.

Lost a device? Just sign in again. Your content is owned by your sign-in identity, not by any machine. A stolen laptop or a reinstalled phone costs you nothing: sign in on the next device and everything you own is there. You don't need a recovery phrase for this — everyday continuity rides entirely on being able to sign in.

You can see your current identity any time:

spl identity show

It prints your identity, the method behind it, and the device you're signing from.

Linked sign-in methods

You can have more than one way to sign in — for example an email address and a Google account — all pointing at the same identity. Adding a second sign-in method never creates a second identity; it's just another door into the one you already have. Manage these from your account settings on the web.

Your recovery phrase

Everyday access rides on signing in. But your identity also has a deeper, self-owned layer: a recovery phrase — a sequence of 24 ordinary words that is your identity at its root. With it, you can rebuild your identity from scratch on any device, with no dependence on any sign-in provider.

Reveal your recovery phrase like this:

spl identity backup --i-understand

If you'd rather not keep the whole phrase in one place, you can split it into five shares, any three of which can rebuild it — useful for storing pieces in separate locations or with people you trust:

spl identity backup --i-understand --shamir

Keep at least three of the five shares safe. Fewer than three reveal nothing.

Recovering on a new device

If you set up a fresh device, lose a machine, or simply want your identity on another computer, restore it from your recovery phrase:

spl identity recover --phrase "word1 word2 ... word24"

Run this on a fresh install. Your identity comes back exactly as it was — same identity, same ownership of your content. If you split your phrase into shares instead, supply any three:

spl identity recover --shamir-share "<share-1>" --shamir-share "<share-2>" --shamir-share "<share-3>"

Recovery is deterministic: the same phrase always rebuilds the same identity, on any device, forever.

Why this matters

• Sign-in is convenience; the recovery phrase is ownership. Day to day, you just sign in and your stuff is there. But if you ever lose access to a sign-in method, the recovery phrase is what guarantees you can still get your identity — and everything you own — back.
• No one can lock you out. Because your identity can be rebuilt from a phrase you alone hold, your access doesn't ultimately depend on any company or provider staying available.
• Back it up once, early. The best time to save your recovery phrase is right after you first set up your identity. Do it before you've created anything you'd hate to lose.

What to do right now

1. If your instance runs master identity mode, run spl identity backup --i-understand and write the 24 words down offline.
2. Store them somewhere you'll still have in a year — not just on the device you're using now.
3. Optionally split them into shares (--shamir) and keep the pieces in different places.

That's it. With your recovery phrase saved, your identity — and everything you build on Syncropel — is genuinely yours, on every device, for good.