A locked note is encrypted on your device with a password that never leaves it. Sync carries the encrypted note between your devices, and nobody else, Grape included, can read it. Locking is on every plan.
Locking a note
Open the note menu and choose Lock Note. The first time, Grape asks you to set a password for your locked notes and then shows you a recovery key. One password covers every note you lock; you are not choosing a password per note.
The note keeps its place in its folder and its title stays in the list on every device so you can tell your locked notes apart. Its text is hidden until you unlock.
The recovery key
Grape cannot reset a locked notes password, because Grape never has it. The recovery key is the one other way in: a long code shown once when you set the password, with a Copy button and a Save as file button. Keep it somewhere safe outside the app, a password manager is the right place. Lose the password and the recovery key both, and the locked notes are gone for good; the setup screen says so, and it means it.
If you forget the password, choose Forgot password on the unlock screen, enter the recovery key and set a new password. Settings has a Locked notes page where you can change the password or generate a new recovery key at any time.
Unlocking
Open a locked note and type the password. That unlocks every locked note until Grape locks them again: after a few minutes without you, when the app goes to the background on the phone, when the screen locks on desktop, when you sign out, or when you click Lock Now on the Locked notes page in Settings. The same page sets how long that wait is.
What a locked note can hold
Text: headings, lists, checklists, tables, code, quotes, links and tags. A note with an image, a scan, a PDF, a recording, a drawing, flashcards, a quiz, a mind map, a slide deck, a Brainrot, an infographic or a mini app cannot be locked, because those live outside the note text; Grape says which ones are in the way so you can take them out first. While a note is locked, the editor only offers the text blocks. Handwriting notes and templates cannot be locked.
What stays hidden
A locked note never goes to an AI: it is left out of chat, search by meaning, the note index and any AI app connected to your account. It is also left out of keyword search, tags, widgets, Spotlight, the share sheet and export all. A single locked note exports only while it is unlocked. Version history is cleared when a note is locked and is not kept while it stays locked.
Sharing
A locked note cannot be shared, and a note inside a shared folder cannot be locked, since nobody you share it with could open it. A note you locked before sharing its folder stays with you alone: the people you share the folder with never receive it.
Removing the lock
Open the note menu and choose Remove Lock. The note is stored in the clear again, shows up in search and the AI can read it as before.
What Grape can see
On the server, a locked note is its title and a scrambled block of text with a folder, a date and a size. The title travels in the clear so your other devices can name the note before you unlock there; everything below the first line is sealed. The password, the recovery key and the key that opens the notes stay on your devices; what sync stores is that key wrapped in your password, which is useless without it.
On Lifetime, where your devices sync through your own Dropbox or Google Drive, the same encrypted form is what lands there, and none of it reaches Grape's servers.