Vaults
A vault is one monitored drive, folder, or single file. Each vault has its own label, path, scan settings, schedule, and parity settings, and tracks its own history independently of other vaults.
Vault card (Dashboard)
Each vault shows as a card with:
- Status and a progress bar during scans, with a live scan ticker
- Percent verified
- Missing / corrupt file counts
Per-vault menu options:
- Vault statistics
- Vault settings
- Remove vault — deletes that vault’s scan history and parity data from FileGriffon’s database. It does not delete the actual files on disk.
Vault settings
| Setting | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Label | Display name for the vault |
| Skip directories | Subfolders to exclude from scanning |
| Schedule mode | Manual, or Scheduled (see Scanning & Detection) |
| Scan size | Auto (recheck the whole vault roughly every N days) or Fixed-GB per session |
| Parity Protection | On/off toggle for PAR2 parity generation |
| Parity Scope | Include or exclude specific subfolders from parity coverage |
| Redundancy preset | Light (5%, available on Free), Standard (10%, default) or Archival (20%) — both require Pro — how much recovery data is generated relative to file size |
| Parity storage location | Where .par2 files are kept; can be changed via “Change location…” |
| File hash protection | Set once when the vault is created (under Advanced), not editable afterward except a one-way Raw → Protected upgrade — see Security & Encryption |
One vault on Free, more with Pro
The Free tier allows one active vault. This is enforced by a counter that only ever increases (not a live count of vaults you currently have), so deleting and re-adding a vault doesn’t reset your slot.
If you have more vaults than your plan allows
This can happen if you created extra vaults during a trial or while licensed, then downgraded to Free (trial ended, subscription lapsed). FileGriffon never deletes or hides a vault because of licensing — instead, all but one vault (the oldest one you created) are paused:
- Paused vaults show “Paused — upgrade to resume monitoring” on their card instead of normal status, and their Start Scan button is disabled — neither manual nor scheduled scans run for them.
- Everything already tracked stays fully visible and browsable: file list, event history, existing parity coverage. Nothing is lost.
- Parity Protection can’t be newly turned on for a paused vault.
- Re-licensing immediately resumes monitoring on every vault — nothing needs to be re-added or re-scanned from scratch.
Which vault stays active is always the oldest one (first created), not whichever you used most recently.
A dismissible banner (“N vaults were paused because your license has expired”) also appears at the top of every page — not just the vault card itself — so you’ll see it even if you land on Events, Tools, or Settings first. Dismissing it hides it until another vault gets paused too.
Swap credits
Because that could unfairly lock you out after an honest mistake (wrong path, a drive you were just testing, replacing a failed drive), Free users get a bounded allowance to replace their one vault slot without losing it permanently:
- 5 swap credits from install
- +1 more every ~182 days (roughly every 6 months)
- No hard cap on how many can accumulate over time
Licensed (Pro/Lifetime) users aren’t subject to this at all — they can have unlimited vaults.
If you’re on Free and think you’re out of swap credits, that’s a sign it’s time to license, not a bug — this limit exists specifically to keep the one-vault tier honest.