Padlok, a smart door code manager built with privacy in mind

Standing at a building’s door without the code again? Not anymore!

• Manage your addresses, and associated info
• Get notified nearby, on your own hours and in your own area
• Share them in a blink, by link or by offline QR code!

Features

• Create your address sheets, and associate codes, intercom, floor, and any relevant access info
• Add an address from a postal address, from a contact, or by picking a place on the map
• Your addresses group themselves into places by town, and the map opens on the area you’re standing in
• Get a notification when you’re approaching, it’ll disappear if you just pass
• Give each address its own hours and its own arrival area, dragged and sized to the building rather than the street
• Read the filter instead of filling it in: every tag, place and pin is a badge, tapped once to include it and again to exclude it
• Filter your addresses automatically based on your current Focus mode, by tag or by place
• Share your address end-to-end encrypted with a secure link (Example link ), or with a Padlok QR Code that carries the address itself and scans with no signal on either side
• Import addresses you have retrieved by link, or QR Code — the scanner uses the whole camera, focuses up close, and says when a code isn’t ours
• Open share links within the app, in an App Clip, or in a web-app
• Access and interact with your addresses from the Shortcuts app
• Lock Screen and Home Screen widgets, showing the closest suggested address, or the one you select
• Start an itinerary with your favorite app with a tap, choosing the maps app from a menu
• Customize your addresses: color, pictogram, door labels, and pin the ones you reach for most
• watchOS app, to check an address on the go
• iCloud syncing to never lose your addresses
• Free App Icon customization, 26 languages, and full VoiceOver support

Roadmap

• Create more than one share link per address sheet, with customized expiration time
• Import and export addresses

Compatibility

• iOS 17 and later, designed for iOS 26
• watchOS 10 and later
• 26 languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese

Pricing

Padlok is free to download, and contains a pro tier called “Padlok Premium” that lifts the free tier’s rations and unlocks additional features.

Creating addresses is free, however many: the free tier is about what you may read, not what you may write. The three nearest addresses are always open, and an address written in the last 12 hours stays open wherever it is, so a sheet typed from the other end of the country is never locked before its codes are filled in.

Sharing is on both tiers. Share links stay limited to one per address and expire 45 days after they are created or last updated; a Padlok QR Code has no such limit — it carries the address itself, so nothing is uploaded, nothing expires, and it works for every address. The features listed under Roadmap will join Padlok Premium when they ship.

Padlok Premium is available at the following prices:

The annual subscription comes with a two-week free trial. Padlok also has a tip jar, offered only to the people who got Premium free of charge — give-away and promo-code recipients.

Currently writing an article about Padlok?

Write to press@padlok.app and we will send you a free promo code to try the Premium features. You can also reach us on Bluesky or Mastodon 🙂

Featurings

• Floodcast - S9 E10 (11/27/2023)
• Indie Dev Sales 2023 (07/11/2023 & 07/12/2023)
• iGen.fr (02/02/2023)
• Indie App Santa 2022 (12/02/2022)

Description

Stuck in front of an apartment building, scrolling through old messages for the door code? Padlok remembers every door code, gate code, intercom and floor for you — and shows them right when you arrive.

Get close to an address and Padlok sends a notification with everything you need to get in: codes, intercom name, floor, and your notes. Just passing by? It quietly disappears. That’s geofencing working for you, not watching you. And every address can set its own terms: the hours it may speak up, and the exact area that counts as arriving — no buzz from the office at the weekend, and a circle sized to the building instead of the street.

You can also keep that information at hand with Padlok’s Lock Screen and Home Screen widgets, on your wrist with the Apple Watch app, or in the Shortcuts app.

Sending an address is a link or a QR code away, and your guests need no account and no install: they open it in the browser or in an App Clip. The QR code carries the address itself, so it scans with no signal on either side.

Padlok Premium unlocks the rest: every address rather than the nearest three, arrival notifications on as many as you like with the hours and the area each one announces you in, full customization, and tags and filters.

Our ethics: security and inclusivity

Padlok’s mission is to make your daily life easier by offering you an effective management tool, but it does not neglect privacy, and takes the security of your data very seriously! Your addresses are stored in your own private iCloud database, and share links are end-to-end encrypted: only the contact you send a link to can read what is behind it. A Padlok QR Code goes further and never reaches a server at all — the address rides inside the code, in a URL fragment that never leaves the device. There are no ads and no tracking. Inclusiveness is also at the core of the app, which offers free customization of its App Icon, speaks 26 languages, and supports Apple accessibility technologies such as VoiceOver, so it stays usable by everyone.

Our story

The idea of a smart door code manager was born right after an evening spent at a friend’s place. While we were at the doorstep of the building, the rain and the groceries we were carrying made it hard to dig the codes out of a contact sheet, the notes, or an old message. The idea took shape on its own: “Isn’t there an app for that? It would notify us automatically in front of the door, and would give us the info.” That’s how Padlok’s journey began.

Our mission: make your daily life easier by bringing an intuitive and functional door code manager, compatible with your Apple devices (iOS and watchOS); while never neglecting the privacy and security of your data, which sit at the heart of our values.

About Illumineering

Illumineering is a two-person studio based in Paris, France. We are a couple as much as a team, and we design, build and support every app ourselves.

Thomas is a back-end architect, and builds our apps outside of his day job. Cécile was a nurse before retraining to work on Illumineering full time, and shapes the experience our users get.

It began during the Covid-19 pandemic with Padlok, which shipped on 24 December 2021 and helps city dwellers and delivery drivers get an entry code the moment they reach an address. SharePal followed on 4 October 2023.

Our mission: to improve people’s daily lives, one application at a time.