Restore on a new phone

A new phone should not mean starting again. Restore is how your vault travels, and the thing that carries it is your recovery phrase.

What it does

On a new phone, Silo can rebuild your vault from your backup using your recovery phrase. Photos, videos, files, albums and favorites come back, because all of them are in the backup.

How it works, step by step

1. Install Silo on the new phone. On the first screen, choose I’m moving from another phone.
2. Sign in to your cloud storage where the backup lives.
3. Type your recovery phrase. The phrase is what opens the backup.
4. Silo downloads your vault, with progress. It checks there is enough free space first, and if it is interrupted it carries on from where it stopped.
5. Silo checks every file opens. The same read-back idea as the vault health check.
6. You choose a new PIN. Your old PIN stays on the old phone. Then your vault opens on the new one.

Why it matters

The phrase is the only thing that you need to remember or keep. Not the old phone, not the old PIN, not an account with Silo. If the old phone is lost, broken or wiped, the vault still comes back.

Backup bugs are how photos get lost, so this is the part of Silo that gets the heaviest testing: interrupting it and cutting the network at every step, then comparing restored files against the originals byte for byte.

Good to know

• Making a backup needs Pro. Restoring one needs no plan at all, because getting your photos back after losing a phone should never depend on paying.
• The phrase is the only way in. Without it, restore can’t work, for you or for us.
• Silo never touches the old phone while restoring.
• Restoring your vault and restoring a purchase are two separate things.