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Help & FAQ/Security & privacy

Is a 12-word recovery phrase secure enough? Why not 24 words like Bitcoin wallets?

Ask your AI agent instead

Yes, 12 words is enough. A 12-word BIP-39 phrase encodes 128 bits of entropy. Brute-forcing 128 bits is not a "needs a bigger computer" problem, it is a "more energy than humanity produces" problem. There is no realistic attack that breaks 128 bits but fails at 256.

The Bitcoin comparison actually shows why 24 words is mostly marketing: Bitcoin keys live on the secp256k1 curve, which itself only provides about 128 bits of security. A 24-word phrase feeds 256 bits of entropy into a lock that still only takes about 128 bits of work to break. That is also why many major wallets still default to 12 words.

PrivacyNotes targets the same 128-bit security level end to end: your phrase is run through a key derivation function, and the encryption it protects (XChaCha20-Poly1305) is keyed to match. Adding 24 words would double what you write down and type without adding any practical security, so we have no plans to offer it.

The honest weak points of any recovery phrase are phishing and where you store the paper, not its length. Guard the phrase itself and 12 words will outlive all of us.

Help & FAQ

Answers and step-by-step guides: security, sync, pricing, and switching from other apps.

// Related questions

What can PrivacyNotes see about my notes? Why a recovery phrase instead of a username and password? Can I choose my own balance between convenience and privacy? If someone guesses my 12 words, can they log into my account? Why is there no two-factor authentication (2FA)?

Still stuck? Ask your AI agent.

You get an answer in seconds instead of waiting for a reply. Your assistant reads all 84 answers and every import guide at once, so it can combine them, follow up on your question, and explain it in your own words. We never see any of it, because we do not run a chatbot.

  1. Copy the prompt.
  2. Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or any other AI assistant.
  3. Ask your question, in your own language.
  4. Keep that chat open. Next time, ask straight away.
Show AI prompt 
Answer my questions about PrivacyNotes using only its help center and its changelog.

Start here: https://privacynotes.app/llms-index.txt
It lists every question with the page that answers it. Fetch the one or two that match mine.
If you can only make one request, fetch https://privacynotes.app/llms-full.txt instead.
If you cannot fetch a .txt or .md file, read https://privacynotes.app/help and https://privacynotes.app/changelog instead.

For what changed, or where something moved, fetch https://privacynotes.app/changelog.md.

Rules:
- Use only those pages. If they do not answer something, say so instead of guessing.
- Never invent a feature, a menu path, a price, or a limit.
- End your reply with the "Source:" URL from the page you used, exactly as written.
- Reply in my language.
- Never ask me for my recovery phrase, my PIN, or the contents of a note.

If no question follows, ask me what I would like to know.

My first question:

Never paste your recovery phrase, your PIN, or a note into an AI.