How to password protect Agenda?

I am a little disappointed that even with the release 11 there is no end to end encryption :(. For now, I am using Standard Notes and Day One for keeping end to end encrypted notes. However, Agenda has a great date based note-taking system that I just cannot utilize until there is end to end encryption. I am hoping we will all get to see and use the feature soon.

This is definitely in the roadmap. Unfortunately, we have quite a few things in that roadmap, and can’t get to it all in the short term. Will certainly get to it sooner or later.

Aside: I don’t think Apple Notes is truly end-to-end encrypted, in the sense that Apple has the keys, and can read your data. For true e2e encryption, you would supply a key, and that would be used for encryption, so Apple could also not read your data. (Note that this must be true, because Apple Notes appear in the Notes web app, which means they can access the contents of your notes.)

All of iCloud is encrypted, though apple have the keys. That is also true of Agenda. We use iCloud, so the data is encrypted in transit and in the cloud, but in theory a rogue employee at Apple could access the data. So that is not true e2e encryption.

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I love the idea of protecting individual notes. 75% of my Agenda items can be seen by anyone but there are a handful of notes that would make me more comfortable if they were protected. My opinion on protecting at the app level is that it is overkill for me but I can see the value in general.

Thanks for the feedback! We will take it on board.

I don’t know how you want to implement this, here are two possibilities I would find interesting for me personally:

  • Password protection for a specific project or category
  • Password protection for any note that has been assigned a specific tag (#secret)

This would keep my wife from finding out about my idea for birthday or Christmas presents… :wink:

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I think when we do it, we would probably allow locking of notes, but not based on tag per se, but just manually selecting the option for a note.

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Locking our main screen is one thing until someone else needs to use our ipad, like children, significant other, friend, ect. I love Agenda in almost every way but I find myself using it for only a couple things because of 2 things. 1 being a password or fingerprint unlock for the app or for a certain Project itself. End to end encryption is not necessary for most people because if they are dealing with things that need that in the first place they probably have that set up i the first place on their device or however that works. Other Apps like Notebook you can protect any specific notebook with a password, and others like TickTick you can protect from the app itself. This is a common protection that many apps have now and very necessary for #Agenda #PasswordProtection. The only other issue that is major is being able to access this outside of my ipad, I have a PC and an Android. At the least make Agenda accessible via WEB.

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I just wonder, is it very difficult to implement a lock for the whole app?! I have several apps which I can use only after using TouchID. Not locking/unlocking a note itself (like in Apple Notes).
I guess it was already mentioned somewhere.

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We would like to do these things. They are in the roadmap.

Most people these days have their own devices, and have those protected, which makes protecting individual apps less useful. The only time you really need protection on individual apps is when you share a device. But how do you then protect your email etc? Presumably there are lots of apps that have sensitive information you wouldn’t want your kids accessing.

My point is not that we won’t do this, but just that it is not an issue for many people, because the devices are locked.

E2E encryption can be an issue, because without it, many people can’t sync. It isn’t allowed by their employer. (This is not a characteristic of the system. This really us up to the individual apps.)

A web app sounds simple, but is an enormous undertaking. It would require us to move our whole native app to the cloud. To give you an idea, we have been working on the native apps now for about 4 years, and still have a lot to do which has been planned from day 1. We would like to do this, but it is a major undertaking.

Appreciate the feedback.

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Especially in our household it is like this: Everyone has their own iPhone, but there is an iPad, which all family members use, including grandma and child. In this particular case, it actually makes sense to protect Agenda, because the data from my iPhone is synchronized with the iPad.

And as I have already written above: Therefore I cannot keep a list of possible Christmas and birthday presents in Agenda — and this is just one example of things I can’t do in Agenda.

Sure, I realize iPads often end up like this. My question is what you do with email etc. Just risk it?

I actually think this is Apple dropping the ball. If an iPad could have different users, it would be a solved problem. It is kind of crazy that every app has to add their own authentication mechanism. You literally have to type a different password for each app.

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On our iPad I didn‘t configure mail apps or any messengers at all. These are only active on my mobile and my Mac.
You‘re right, it is Apple to blame that they have „forgotten“ multi user possibilities in iOS / iPadOS. I am looking forward to v20 or the like…

In the meantime I am glad that you think about to build in a protection somehow.
This feature isn‘t on top of my whishlist, but I must admit it would be nice to have.

I use app-lock on macOS and/or iOS with OmniFocus, Day One, Airmail, WhatsApp, DEVONThink To Go, Signal, Telegram, Habitify, Bear, and the list goes on… I also use screen locks, full-disk encryption, and more as well. Just having one is not an excuse to ignore the others.

This is important functionality for an app like Agenda, too. As a consultant, I need to take senstiive notes about my clients’ business as well as that of my firm, and it’s important that I have multiple levels of information security.

Please go beyond and push past your own experience to consider what it means for paying users. I see your response above as unempathetic when you speak only from your own experience, which is frustrating.

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Not speaking from personal experience. I don’t use any encryption beyond what the system provides.

You seem to have completely misinterpreted what I was saying. Wasn’t ruling out any type of encryption. We have to prioritize all of our features. You may think this is the most important thing in the world, and for you it may well be, but we have thousands of others who couldn’t care less, and just want to share a shopping list with their spouse. See the problem?

We have to triage. Decide what is most important for the app as a whole at any point in time. It doesn’t mean we are ruling out any of the options, just that some will no doubt come in ahead of others, and I am simply trying to understand the use cases for people.

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@drewmccormack I realize im late to the conversation but Im new! haha :grin:
Just in case you haven’t seen it, have a look at the support article: Apple Locked Notes

Joining the conversation, my use case is the following:

I have a journaling app, I’d like to replace it with agenda to use just one app for everything, however I can’t because my device is often shared with my family, they know the password, but my diary is protected with another password that only I know. I’d like to protect a specific project/subproject with password so that nobody can access to it even if they open agenda. Alternatively I’d like to passwordLock / faceIDLock agenda (as many apps allow me to do).

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Thanks for the feedback. We would like to add this feature too, and it is on our roadmap. Just need to find the time to do it…

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Unless you are Bob Dillinger!

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+1 General Agenda app Lock/Unlock function separate from my device lock/unlock. I’d go for just a separate PIN number to unlock the app. I can’t believe we’re still wishing for this. There are so many different levels of security discussed here, that it appears you have just avoided the matter all together. Paralyzed by options. Perhaps you could introduce a small incremental change at first so there is at least the lowest level of security cheaply available. I just don’t want my roomie who does have my device pin to see my diary entries.

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Not ignoring the problem. It’s an important project, but we have other projects to do too. Just a question of prioritizing.

You have pointed out that whatever we do, a bunch of people will be disappointed. I can guarantee you that if we put a pin on the whole app, 90% of people waiting for this would complain.

We will probably add hiding of individual notes, and perhaps projects. It’s in the roadmap.

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