Set it up once, properly.

Add one watch at a time.

Gather the photographs, documents and details for a single piece first, then enter it as completely as you can. Market values and insured values are entirely your own figures — the application does not appraise, does not fetch prices, and cannot check anything against an outside source, because it has no way to reach one. You are responsible for the accuracy of everything you enter; see the Terms for how valuations and financial figures are treated.

Review, then repeat.

Check the entry is correct before moving on to the next piece. Repeat this, one watch at a time, until the collection is complete. An entry made carefully once is worth more than a collection entered quickly and never checked.

Secure your vault — and your recovery key.

Under Data → Backups, choose Save an encrypted backup. Make two copies on separate USB drives, and keep the drives in two separate, secure physical locations — a home safe and a bank safety-deposit box is a reasonable split.

On a Mac, also choose Choose where backups go: the app then saves an encrypted backup there every week while it is open.

Your recovery key is not on either drive, so the two need separate hiding places — together, a single loss takes both. Setup will not finish until you type one randomly chosen block of it back, so a key you meant to write down but did not cannot slip past.

Generate the physical documents.

Under Insurance & Sales, the Insurance schedule comes in three versions — all watches, insured only, or no coverage recorded — so you can choose how much of the collection an agent sees. Alongside it, Sales, gifts and losses holds a Sales dossier, which covers one watch for a buyer, and Sold watches — what you made or lost, which records what has left the collection. The Estate register lives under Owner & Succession, alongside the Legacy folio, and asks for your passphrase before it opens — it carries vault locations and access codes, so it is treated the way the sealed documents are. Each document opens in a reader inside the application first, so you can read it before deciding to save it, and saving asks before it writes anything. Your collection has no route off the computer, so nothing leaves it to produce them.

Print two copies of each and store them alongside your USB drives, so every physical location holds a complete set: the encrypted vault, and the paper record.

Maintain your records.

Automatic backups repeat on their own while the app is open. The USB copies in your safe are made by hand: repeat them, with the printed documents, whenever you make a change that matters for insurance, property or estate purposes: an acquisition, a sale, a loss, a change in coverage. The most recent backup is the only one that counts.

Enjoy the view.

Watch Vault Archive handles insurance schedules and estate planning properly, but it is also simply a place to see a whole collection organized in one view. Looking at an entire rotation laid out at once is often the most useful thing it does. Press Select, tick two or three watches, then press Compare. Each row is one detail — price, size on the wrist, dial, movement, condition, service, wear, ratings, insurance — and appears only when at least two of the watches have it. Watches you own come first, so each row reads from yours to the one you’re considering. Rows where they differ are highlighted, and sizes show the difference from the first watch, such as +1.8 mm. It shows you the differences; it never ranks the watches or recommends one.