If you live in PDFs, spreadsheets, Word docs, emails, and images, your note app should feel like a cockpit, not a cluttered file dump. VaultBook turns every note into a secure mini project hub, where each attachment is clearly color-coded by file type and always one click away — all while staying offline, password-protected with AES-GCM, and ready for HIPAA and PII-heavy workflows.
Why Attachments Matter More Than Ever
Most professionals don’t just write text. Therapists attach lab reports and care plans. Data scientists attach CSV exports and dashboards. Journalists attach leaked PDFs, screenshots, and Outlook MSG emails. Students attach slides, readings, and problem sets.
Cloud apps like Evernote, Notion, OneNote, Obsidian, Goodnotes, Notability, Google Keep, and practice tools like TherapyNotes and Carepatron all support attachments. But they often bury them behind tiny icons or stash them in a generic “attachments” area where you can’t immediately tell what’s what.
VaultBook takes a different approach: it treats attachments as first-class citizens and makes them visually obvious — without sending any of them to the cloud by default.
Color-Coded File Chips: See Your Workspace at a Glance
At the bottom of each VaultBook note, every attached file appears as a rounded, color-coded chip. For example:
- CSV & XLSX – analytics files in data-friendly green
- DOC / DOCX – narrative documents in deep blue
- PPT / PPTX – slide decks in presentation red
- TXT – transcripts and logs in soft blue
- IMG (JPG/PNG) – images and scans in teal
- MP3 / audio – recordings in purple
Each chip shows the filename and size, so a single glance tells you:
- Which formats are linked to this note
- Where your key evidence or references live
- Whether you’re looking at raw data, narrative text, slides, or audio
Instead of scrolling through a long mixed list, your eye instantly jumps to the right color. Need the CSV from last week’s experiment? Look for green. Want the formal Word note from a therapy session? Look for blue. Need to replay the MP3 recording? Purple is waiting.
Better Than Generic Icons in Notion, Evernote, and OneNote
Cloud note apps do show file icons, but they’re usually cramped into narrow columns or hidden behind expandable sections. When you’re working quickly, everything blurs together — especially in complex notes that mix PDFs, spreadsheets, and audio.
VaultBook’s design advantage is simple but powerful:
- Larger, color-coded chips: You’re not squinting at 16×16 icons.
- Grouped by session or project: All attachments for a note live together under the text you just wrote.
- Instant click-through: Files open directly from your secure local folder — no upload, no web viewer, no cloud account.
For regulated environments, that last point matters. Evernote, Notion, OneNote, and most EMR/PM systems require your attachments to live on their servers. VaultBook instead keeps everything on your own disk and simply indexes what you attach.
Secure, Offline, and HIPAA/PII-Ready
All of this color-coding sits on top of a privacy-first architecture:
- Secure & offline-first: VaultBook runs locally, with no requirement for internet or vendor accounts.
- Password protection with AES-GCM: Notes and content can be shielded using strong AES-GCM, ideal for PHI and PII when paired with responsible device policies.
- HIPAA & PII-ready workflows: Perfect for healthcare, legal, and finance professionals who must keep client data off third-party clouds.
- No encryption at rest: Files stay as normal documents on disk, so you can pair VaultBook with full-disk encryption, enterprise tools, or forensic workflows you already trust.
Where apps like TherapyNotes or Carepatron are inherently cloud-hosted medical systems, VaultBook positions itself as your personal, offline “thinking space” and attachment vault — the place where you work through drafts, synthesize information, and keep sensitive supporting files without exposing them to external servers.
Attach and Search Everything: PDFs, Word, Excel, MSG, Images
Color coding would be cosmetic if VaultBook couldn’t also find your files. In practice, you can attach and search:
- PDF lab reports, contracts, research papers
- Word progress notes, legal briefs, essays
- Excel and CSV data extracts, trackers, and models
- Outlook MSG emails and correspondence
- Images and scans of forms, whiteboards, and evidence
Search works across titles, note content, labels, and attachment metadata, so your green CSV chip in one note can still be discovered from another project. You can organize everything using Pages, Labels, and Hierarchy to match how you actually think: client → sessions → attachments, case → evidence → filings, dataset → experiments → charts.
Expiry Limits and 60-Day Purge Policies for Sensitive Data
Color-coded chips also make it obvious which attachments are sensitive. Combined with expiry limits and 60-day purge policies, VaultBook helps you practice real data minimization:
- Flag notes containing PHI, PII, or confidential material for expiry.
- Review them before or at expiry, then purge after a grace period.
- Use the visual chips to double-check which files are leaving with them.
Most mainstream note tools assume you want to keep everything forever in their cloud. VaultBook assumes the opposite: sensitive data should have a lifecycle you control.
Who Benefits from Color-Coded Attachments in VaultBook?
Because everything is local, secure, and visually organized, VaultBook serves a wide range of power users:
- Therapists & clinicians: Quickly spot which entries contain lab PDFs, progress DOCs, and audio MP3s for each client.
- Students & researchers: Keep slides, readings, data, and summaries together without uploading coursework to third-party servers.
- Data scientists & analysts: Instantly distinguish between CSV exports, model spreadsheets, and reporting decks.
- Journalists & investigators: Visually separate leaked PDFs, images, and transcripts for each story.
- Legal & finance professionals: Readily see which notes include contracts, spreadsheets, and evidence images tied to a matter.
Optional Sync and a Sustainable Subscription Model
VaultBook is meant to be a private, offline vault. But if you need to move it between devices, you can sync the VaultBook folder (index, attachments, libraries, JSONs) using any cloud provider or on-prem file-sync solution you control. VaultBook itself never phones home.
A straightforward yearly subscription funds ongoing development — deeper search, stronger AES-GCM integration, smarter expiry policies, and UI refinements like the color-coded file chips that make your vault feel intuitive and fast.
VaultBook: Your Color-Coded, Secure Personal Digital Vault
If you’re tired of cloud note apps blurring your attachments into generic icons — and tired of trusting your most sensitive files to someone else’s server — VaultBook offers a different path. Secure, offline, password-protected with AES-GCM, HIPAA and PII-ready, attachment-centric, organized with Pages, Labels, and Hierarchy, and visually clear thanks to color-coded file chips.
VaultBook is your personal digital vault: private, encrypted in use, and always under your control — with every CSV, DOCX, PPTX, MSG, and JPG exactly where you can see it.