What a Privnote password actually adds
Without a password, whoever holds the Privnote URL can read the note. With a password, the link alone is useless: the reader must also know a secret that never travelled through the same channel.
This matters most when the Privnote link goes through email, a corporate chat or a ticketing system where messages are archived, scanned and often readable by administrators.
How to share a Privnote password safely
Use a genuinely different channel and a hint the recipient can resolve but a stranger cannot.
- Link by email, Privnote password read out on a phone call
- Link in chat, password in a password manager share
- Password as a hint only both of you can answer
- Never put the Privnote password in the same message as the link
If the Privnote password is lost
Nothing can be recovered. Privnote never stores the plaintext, so a forgotten password means the note is gone and you simply create a new Privnote. Treat that as the expected cost of a zero-knowledge design.