Rolodex

What it does

• Everything stays encrypted. Your whole vault is scrambled with strong, industry-standard encryption and can only be opened with your master password. (For the technically curious: AES via Fernet, with the key derived from your password using PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256 at 600,000 rounds and a random per-vault salt.)
• Organise into categories. Group entries (Email, Banking, Games…), collapse the sections you're not using, and drag entries from one category to another.
• Find anything fast. Search as you type across names, fields, and notes.
• Secrets stay hidden. Passwords and keys are masked behind dots and reveal only when you ask. Rolodex recognises sensitive-looking fields on its own.
• Built-in password generator. Create a strong random password in a click, with control over its length and which kinds of characters to include.
• Live 2FA codes. Store an authenticator secret (a otpauth:// link or the plain setup key) and Rolodex shows the rotating 6-digit login code right on the card, with a countdown ring and one-click copy — no separate phone app needed.
• Safer copying. Copy a password with one click — and Rolodex wipes it from the clipboard a few seconds later, so it doesn't sit there for other apps to read.
• Auto-locks when you step away. After a stretch of inactivity (or instantly with the Lock button or Ctrl+L), Rolodex re-locks and forgets your master password until you unlock again.
• Import your existing list from a plain text file, with a preview and a skip-duplicates step.
• Backup & restore, plus a plain-text export if you ever want to move your data elsewhere.
• Change your master password whenever you like.
• Easy to scan. Different kinds of fields — logins, keys, web addresses, dates — each get their own colour accent so a card reads at a glance.

Download & run

Ready-to-run downloads for Linux, Windows, and macOS are on the Releases page. Each is a single file with everything bundled inside — there's nothing else to install.

Your system	Download	How to start it
Linux (x86-64)	rolodex-linux-x86_64	Make it runnable — chmod +x rolodex-linux-x86_64 — then run it. Works on most current Linux systems.
Windows (64-bit)	rolodex-windows-x86_64.exe	Double-click it. It isn't signed yet, so Windows may show a blue "protected your PC" box — click More info → Run anyway.
macOS (Apple Silicon)	rolodex-macos-arm64	It isn't signed yet, so the first time right-click → Open, then confirm. After that it opens normally.

Your vault is saved in your personal data folder (~/.local/share/Rolodex on Linux, ~/Library/Application Support/Rolodex on macOS, %APPDATA%\Rolodex on Windows), not next to the download.

First launch

The first time you open Rolodex, you'll create your master password (at least 8 characters). This one password protects everything.

⚠️ There is no way to recover a forgotten master password. It is never saved anywhere — it's the only key to your data. If you lose it, the data is gone for good. Make a backup you can restore from (menu → Backup vault…) and keep your master password somewhere safe.

Run from source instead (optional)

Prefer to run the code directly? You'll need a few things first:

• Python 3.10 or newer
• GTK 4 and libadwaita — the desktop toolkit Rolodex is built with — via PyGObject
• The Python cryptography package

Install the toolkit from your system's package manager:

# openSUSE
sudo zypper install python3-gobject gtk4 libadwaita python3-cryptography

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install python3-gi gir1.2-gtk-4.0 gir1.2-adw-1 python3-cryptography

# Fedora
sudo dnf install python3-gobject gtk4 libadwaita python3-cryptography

The desktop toolkit has to come from your system (it isn't on PyPI). The one remaining piece, cryptography, can also be installed with pip — always the latest version:

pip install -U -r requirements.txt

Then start it:

python3 rolodex.py

Add it to your app menu (Linux)

A rolodex.desktop launcher is included. Point it at your copy of the repo and install it:

# from the folder where you cloned this repo:
sed -i "s|/path/to/rolodex|$PWD|g" rolodex.desktop   # point it at this copy
cp rolodex.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/

Where your things are kept

File	What it is
rolodex.py	The whole application (it's a single file).
contacts.vault	Your encrypted vault — created on first run. Never shared or committed.
.rolodex.conf	Window size plus a couple of non-secret settings (see below). Plain text, no secrets.
Backups/, rolodex_export_*.txt	Backups and exports you create.
requirements.txt	The single pip dependency (cryptography).
rolodex.desktop	The app-menu launcher (edit its paths — see above).
rolodex.png	The app icon.

Security & privacy

• Your vault is protected with well-established encryption, but its real strength is your master password — pick a strong one.
• The vault file can be read only by your own user account, and your master password is never written to disk.
• Two safety timers can be tuned in .rolodex.conf (plain text, no secrets): how long before it auto-locks (idle_lock_seconds, default 300 seconds; set 0 to turn off) and how soon a copied password is wiped from the clipboard (clipboard_clear_seconds, default 20; 0 to turn off).
• This is a personal-use tool, not audited security software. It's one readable file — feel free to look before trusting it with anything critical. The nuts-and-bolts of the vault format are documented in docs/specs/vault-format-and-crypto.md.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md for the ground rules (one-file app, minimal dependencies) and SECURITY.md for reporting security issues privately.

License

MIT © 2026 Anthony Schemel