GreatPingPasscode, app lock and security
Protect approvals with a GreatPing passcode, lock the app, and see every change to your account.
Your phone is the key to your GreatPing account: it approves computers and devices. GreatPing adds its own protection on top of the phone's lock.
Passcode & App Lock
Settings › Passcode & App Lock.
Without a GreatPing passcode
Approving or removing devices and computers asks for Face ID, Touch ID, your fingerprint or your phone's own passcode. The app itself opens without a lock. If your phone has no screen lock at all, the app warns you: anyone holding it could approve computers for your account.
With a GreatPing passcode
Tap Set Up Passcode and choose six digits. Codes that are easy to guess, such as 123456 or 111111, are refused.
The passcode is then always needed to:
- approve or remove devices and computers;
- change another device's alerts;
- open the app, if Lock When Opening is on.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Lock When Opening | Asks for the passcode when you open GreatPing. On by default once you set a passcode. |
| Require After | How long the app may stay in the background before it locks again: immediately, 1, 5 or 15 minutes. |
| Use Face ID (or Touch ID, fingerprint) | Unlock with biometrics instead of typing the passcode. If the enrolled faces or fingers change on the phone, GreatPing asks for the passcode once before trusting them again. |
| Change Passcode / Turn Off Passcode | Both ask for the current passcode. |
While the app lock is on, notifications have no Yes, No or Reply buttons, so nobody can answer a question from a locked phone.
Wrong passcodes
After a few wrong passcodes, GreatPing makes you wait before the next try, and restarting the app does not reset that. After 10 wrong passcodes in a row, GreatPing signs this device out of your account.
Forgot your passcode?
Tap Forgot Passcode? on the lock screen. The device leaves your account and signs out. Link it again from another device, or, if it was your only device, start a new account and pair your computers again. The passcode cannot be reset, because nobody else knows it, us included.
Hide in the app switcher
Hide in App Switcher (on Android, Hide in Recents) shows the GreatPing mark, or a blank card on Android, instead of your alerts and computers when you switch apps.
Security Activity
Settings › Security Activity lists every change to your account from the last 90 days:
- devices and computers added or removed, and which device did it;
- renames;
- changes to who gets alerts.
Every device of your account sees the same list. When a device or computer joins or leaves, your other devices also get a notification about it, even when they are paused. If you see something you did not do, remove that device or computer at once. See Devices and routing.
Recently added devices
A device added in the last 72 hours is marked New in the device list, and its screen says when and by which device it was added. Until it is 72 hours old, it cannot remove devices or computers that joined before it. If someone gets hold of a new device of your account, they cannot lock you out.
What the app keeps on the phone
The device's keys and credential are stored in the phone's secure storage (Keychain on iPhone, Keystore on Android), are never backed up and never leave the device. The passcode itself is not stored, only a value to check it against. See What GreatPing can see for what leaves the phone.