The basics
What it controls
Your vault has an inbox, where notes that mention you land, and a chat store for your direct messages. Anyone on Nostr can try to send to them. Who Can Reach You keeps out everyone who isn't close to you in your follows. This is your Web of Trust, and it's the vault's spam filter.
- Mentions and messages from people outside your trust list are turned away.
- Replies and quotes of your own posts still get in, from anyone.
- Your messages can only be read by people on the list who sign in.
- Your own notes aren't affected. You can always post.
Open it from Settings → Your Vault Relay → Who Can Reach You, or tap Who can reach you on the Vault tab, which shows how many people can reach your inbox right now.
The settings
Follow Distance, Minimum Followers, Refresh Trust List
Follow Distance
How many follows away someone can be and still reach you. Lower is more private.
| Distance | Who can reach you |
|---|---|
| 1 | Only you. |
| 2 | You and the people you follow. |
| 3 (default) | You, the people you follow, and the people they follow, if enough of your follows follow them (see Minimum Followers). |
The control stops at 3. An older setting of 4 or 5 shows as 3, which is how the relay always ran it.
Minimum Followers
At distance 3, how many of the people you follow must also follow someone before they can reach you. The default is 3. Raise it to keep out more strangers, lower it to let more friends of friends in. It has no effect at distance 1 or 2.
Refresh Trust List
How often the vault rebuilds the list from your follows: Every hour, Every 12 hours, Every day (default) or Every week. Someone you just followed can reach you after the next rebuild.
At a glance
Who can see what
There's no setting for who can see your vault. This is what each kind of visitor gets.
| Your devices | Anyone on the mesh | Anyone on the web | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notes | Yes | No | Yes, your public notes |
| Private notes | Yes | No | No, only you |
| Photos | Yes | Only photos named in your public notes | Yes, your public photos |
| Messages | Yes | No | Only people who sign in and are within your Follow Distance |
Your devices are the ones in My Devices.
Where to find it
Phone, Mac and web
- iPhone and Mac have the same screen. On the Mac it's in the Settings sidebar.
- Android has the same settings, and restarts the vault for you when you change one.
- The web has no trust settings. Its Who Can Reach You row opens the browser relay's mesh panel, where Who can reach this relay is a list of your own vaults' mesh addresses.
Not getting a mention you expected? The sender may be too far from you. Follow them, or raise Follow Distance, then wait for the next trust list refresh.