What is AllMyNotes Organizer? ‹ A closer look at how AllMyNotes protects your data

We designed the storage engine around a simple promise: your notes should open instantly for you and remain useless to anyone who gets hold of the file without authorization. Encryption is only one part of that promise. The format is also built to recover from damage, back itself up, stay fast as it grows, and move safely as a single file.

A vault with two distinct lines of defense

First, AES-256 protects the database key with your master password. The key capable of unlocking your data is not stored in an exposed form. AES-256 is a widely trusted modern encryption standard; with a strong, unique password, exhaustive guessing becomes computationally impractical.

Then ChaCha22 encrypts the database itself. AllMyNotes uses the AES-256-protected key to encrypt everything inside the .ddb file — not just the visible note text, but folders, formatting, attachments, indexes, and internal records as well. Someone examining the raw file does not get convenient pieces of readable information to work with.

The protected data never needs to leave your computer. Copying or stealing the .ddb file is not enough to read it. We do not keep a cloud replica, we cannot look up your notes on a server, and there is no back door or universal recovery key. The file is yours, the password is yours, and control stays with you.

Already using a database created before version 5.03? There is no reason to panic. Those files use our earlier proprietary encryption algorithm. It is simpler than the new design, but since its introduction in 2009 it has never been compromised. Your existing database remains usable and protected. We recommend moving to the new format because AES-256 and ChaCha22 provide a substantially stronger, modern security foundation for the future — not because the old format has suddenly become unsafe.

Strong encryption, without making the program heavy or fragile

• Starts instantly, regardless of database size. AllMyNotes first loads only a tiny tree structure. Notes load on demand and are released when you move away, keeping startup time and memory use low whether you have ten notes or ten thousand.

• Self-repairing database that can survive severe corruption. Important text is stored redundantly. If a drive fault, malware, or an interrupted write damages the file, the engine can restore data automatically — even in tests where up to 90% of the file was corrupted.

• Encrypted at rest as one complete unit. The new format protects the entire database with ChaCha22, while AES-256 protects its key with your password. Copy the file to USB, a NAS, or backup storage: its protected contents remain unreadable without the required key.

• No practical database-size limit. The .ddb format supports files up to 16 exabytes, the NTFS limit. Large images do use RAM when their note is open, so sensible attachment sizes are best on older computers.

• Fast search without loading every note. A built-in search index keeps disk activity low and results fast even as your database grows.

The small engineering decisions that make storage dependable

• A virtual file system inside one file. Rewritten and deleted space is reused, and the database quietly defragments on exit to stay compact and responsive.

• Automatic timestamped backups. AllMyNotes creates a dated backup after each session and automatically cleans up backups older than the configured retention period.

• Easy to move and back up. Your complete database is one file. Copy it to another drive, a NAS, a USB stick, or any folder watched by your backup software.

• No database-engine dependencies. Our storage engine is built in-house. It does not require .NET, SQLite, ADO, or a separate database runtime.

• Full Unicode support. Store English, Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, or mixed-language text natively in the same database.

• Your password is never stored. We cannot recover it, and neither a server nor a recovery email holds a substitute key. That is real privacy, but it also means your password matters: choose a strong, unique one and keep it somewhere safe.

• Purpose-built instead of pieced together. We created the database engine specifically for AllMyNotes, so encryption, instant access, compact storage, backups, and recovery from file damage work as one coherent system rather than a collection of afterthoughts.

FAQ

Q: Is my data safe in a proprietary format?

A: Yes. The format is private, but your content is not locked in: you can export it whenever you wish. The free Lite Edition can also open and edit .ddb files, so access to your data does not depend on a Deluxe license.

Q: Why does my .ddb file use about seven bytes per text character?

A: Unicode storage, redundant copies for recovery, the search index, and a small amount of pre-allocated space all contribute. The tradeoff buys faster access and substantially better protection against data loss.

Q: Does AllMyNotes compress data?

A: Images are stored in compressed PNG format. Plain text is already small, so leaving it uncompressed avoids extra processing and keeps access fast.

Still have questions? Contact us — we are real people, and we read every message.