A lock screen keeps out someone who respects the lock screen. Encryption keeps out everyone else.
Updated September 2026 · Dash teamPlenty of apps offer to lock themselves with a passcode or Face ID. In most, the lock is exactly what it looks like: a screen drawn over the top. The notes underneath are ordinary files. Anyone who copies them off the disk, restores them from a backup, or opens the app’s folder reads everything without meeting the lock at all.
This guide covers the difference, and what app lock does in Dash.
A lock screen is a check in the app’s own code: it asks for a passcode and decides whether to render your content. Everything about that decision happens inside a program that is running on hardware someone else is now holding. The data on disk never changed.
Encryption changes the data. Without the key, the file is noise. There is no code path to bypass, because the protection is not a decision the app makes; it is a property of the bytes.
The practical test: if someone copied the app’s folder to a USB stick, could they read your notes? With a lock screen, yes. With encryption, no.
A lock you have to remember to use is a lock you will forget. Dash re-locks itself after 1, 5, 15 or 30 minutes of inactivity, and when the machine sleeps. Cmd+Shift+L locks it instantly, which is the shortcut worth learning: it is for the moment someone walks in, not for the end of the day.
On a laptop that leaves the house, one or five minutes is the right setting. The cost of a short timer is a fingerprint; the cost of a long one is everything.
App lock is one password protecting everything. Per-note locks give individual notes their own password, so the most sensitive material stays encrypted even after the app is open. Somebody who watches you unlock Dash over your shoulder still cannot read a locked note.
For coercion rather than curiosity, the duress password opens a decoy set of notes instead of the real ones.
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