Background

Your recovery code is the key to your message history. Beeper encrypts your message history so only you can read it, and your recovery code is used as part of this process.  Think of it like a secure box with one key.

By requesting a new recovery code, the old secure box is still locked, and has to be discarded, never to be opened again, and a new box is created with the new code.

What does this mean for me? 🤔

You will need to remove any configured chat networks during this process, as they will need to use the new recovery code key to send and receive messages.  This also means that message history for some services may be lost:

Ok, I know the downside. How do I do this, step-by-step?

You can only make a recovery code using the desktop Beeper app for Mac or Windows.  The screenshots shown below are based on the Mac desktop app.

Once you are logged in, the first step is to remove your chat networks.  They cannot send or receive messages with the new recovery code, so they must be set up again at the end of this process.

Go to the gear menu in the top left:

Then select Chat Networks:

Then for each chat network you have configured, select it and click the Delete button:

Once this is done for all the networks, go back to the gear menu, and select Settings:

Go to the Security and Privacy panel:

Then scroll down on this panel (it can be hard to see the scroll bar on the right, but it is there):

Click Export E2E room keys.  You will be prompted to set a password.  Using a strong password is a good idea, as this will allow anyone with the file to decrypt any messages for you.

Once the keys have been exported, scroll back to the "Encryption" section in the same panel.

Once here, click to Reset your Secure Backup (see “1” below).

You will be provided with a new recovery code which you will need in the next step.

Now click to Reset your Cross-signing keys (see “2” above).  You will see the following prompt:

When you click Clear cross-signing keys, you will be prompted for the recovery code you just made.

Once this is complete, sign out of all your other Beeper apps (if installed on your phone, tablet, or other computer), then sign in using this new desktop app to verify.  This is needed to propagate the new keys across all your Beeper installations.

You have now created and set up a new recovery code. 

Now, you can set up your chat networks again to use the new keys. 🎉