Look What I HaveHelp › The caretaker password
The caretaker password
A short number that keeps the tablet's settings out of the way, for whoever looks after it.
Why the tablet has no sign-out
She has no account and no password. There is nothing for her to be signed out of, so a sign-out button would only ever be a button that breaks her tablet.
But somebody occasionally needs to see which archive it is talking to, or move it to a new address. That is what this is for.
Getting in
- Tap the very top-left corner of the main screen five times, within about three seconds. There is nothing drawn there — it is a blank corner, and a stray tap does nothing.
- Type the caretaker password and tap Open.
- Settings opens. Back to the photos leaves.
It is set per tablet and written in the setup notes handed over when the tablet was paired — not printed on this page, and not emailed. If you look after an archive and do not have it, use contact and we will confirm who you are before sending anything.
What is behind it
- The address of the archive the tablet is signed in to.
- Whether it is paired, and the app version.
- Follow her face with the camera — on or off. Turn it off if the small window moves about too much for her.
- A way to pair the tablet to a different archive, or unpair it.
Nothing else. No photos, no stories, nothing that can delete anything.
What it is not
It is not a secret, and it does not pretend to be. It guards against a stray hand and a curious grandchild — not against somebody who has taken the tablet away with them.
The things that actually protect the archive are elsewhere: the tablet's own credential, which can be revoked from the console the moment a tablet goes missing, and the fact that the archive is on your family's machine rather than the open internet.
Tell whoever looks after the archive straight away and have them revoke that tablet's pairing. It stops working immediately, and no password on the tablet is involved in that.
Pinning the screen
Most families also turn on Android's own screen pinning, so the app cannot be left by accident and the tablet comes back to the photos on its own. That uses the tablet's ordinary lock-screen PIN, which is a different number from this one, and it is set up when the tablet is handed over.