Key Concepts
Understanding these concepts will help you get the most out of CredenShare.
Shares
A share is an encrypted credential stored temporarily on CredenShare's servers. Each share has:
- A unique URL that carries the key needed to decrypt it
- An expiration time after which the credential is permanently deleted
- An optional view limit that caps how many times the credential can be accessed
Encryption
Where the encryption happens depends on where the share was created:
- Credentials shared from the web, the REST API or an SDK are encrypted in the client with AES-256-GCM. The decryption key never reaches us, so we store ciphertext we cannot read
- Credentials created through the Slack app are encrypted on our servers with AES-256 envelope encryption, using a customer-managed key in AWS KMS
- All traffic is TLS
Expiration
Every share has an expiration. The presets are:
| Duration | Use Case |
|---|---|
| 1 hour | Immediate transfers, short-lived access |
| 24 hours | Default for shares created from the homepage |
| 3 days | Default in the app |
| 7 days | Longer-term credential handoff |
| 14 days | Extended handoff |
| 30 days | Extended access for projects |
The presets are shortcuts. In the app you can set any value from 1 hour up to 3 months — hours up to 24, days up to 31, or months up to 3.
After expiration, the credential is permanently and irrecoverably deleted.
View Limits
View limits control how many times a credential can be accessed:
- Unlimited (default, all plans) — no cap on views; the share ends at its expiration
- Limited — set a view count; the credential is destroyed once it is used up
Shares created from the homepage widget are always single-view — the first open destroys them, and this cannot be changed. To choose a different view limit, create the share from the app.
Access Trail
Each share carries an access trail: every access attempt with its timestamp, IP address, platform, user agent, and whether a password attempt failed. It is exportable as CSV or JSON.
Creation and expiry times are shown in your Shares and Expired Shares lists; they are not part of the access trail. There is no log of administrative actions available to customers.
How far back you can read the trail depends on your plan: Solo 3 days, Basic 7, Plus 30, Business 90, Enterprise 180. Free accounts have no retention window.