How to open a Doghouse vault without Doghouse

Why your vaults don't need Doghouse

Doghouse doesn't use a format of its own. Each vault is a standard Apple encrypted disk image, protected with AES-256 — the same kind Disk Utility makes (our guide to encrypted disk images covers them in depth). macOS does the encrypting and unlocking, so Doghouse is a convenient way to open vaults, not the only way.

That's what “works without us” means on our homepage: with or without the app, every vault opens with macOS and its password.

In this guide, “the vault file” means the file Doghouse saved when you created the vault. Open, its contents appear as a drive in Finder. Closed, it's unreadable.

Find the vault file

Doghouse saves new vaults in your Documents folder unless you pick another folder when you create one. The file is named after the vault, with one of two endings:

• Family.nosync — the usual one. “Keep out of iCloud” is on by default, and Doghouse keeps a vault out of iCloud Drive by giving it a .nosync name plus Apple's file-provider “ignore” marker. Inside, it's still an ordinary encrypted sparse bundle.
• Family.sparsebundle — if you switched “Keep out of iCloud” off for that vault.

While Doghouse is installed, its Reveal Vault File in Finder command takes you straight to the file. Without the app, Doghouse's vault list is a small text file at ~/Library/Application Support/Doghouse/vaults.json. In Finder, choose Go › Go to Folder, paste that path, and open the file in TextEdit: each vault's bundlePath shows exactly where its file is.

Every way to open a vault, compared

Every method asks for the same password and gives you the same files. They differ in convenience, and in how much they tell you when something goes wrong.

Scroll sideways on small screens. These methods also work on another Mac and on restored backups.

Double-click it in Finder

This is the method Apple gives for any disk image: double-click it to open it. It works once the vault file ends in .sparsebundle. If the vault is open in Doghouse, lock it there first.

1. Find the vault file, usually in Documents (see above).
2. If it ends in .nosync, rename it to end in .sparsebundle. Change only the ending, press Return and confirm when Finder asks about changing the extension. If Finder hides endings, select the file, press ⌘ I and edit Name & Extension.
3. Double-click it. macOS opens a password window with the vault file's name in it.
4. Type the vault's password and click OK. Leave Remember password in my keychain unticked if anyone else uses your Mac.
5. Use your files. The unlocked vault appears in Finder's sidebar under Locations and works like any other drive.
6. Eject it when you're done. Click the eject button next to its name in the sidebar, or select it and press ⌘ E. Ejecting is what locks it. If you still use Doghouse, rename the file back to .nosync afterwards, or use Locate Vault… in Doghouse to point it at the renamed file.

Tick Remember password in my keychain and the vault opens for anyone using your logged-in account. Fine on a Mac only you use; a bad idea on a shared one. More in our disk image guide.

Open it from Disk Utility

Useful when double-clicking seems to do nothing, or when you want to see the vault alongside your other disks.

1. Open Disk Utility. In macOS Tahoe, click the Apps icon in the Dock and type “Disk Utility”. On any version, choose Go › Utilities in Finder, or press ⌘ Space and type its name (Apple's instructions).
2. Choose File › Open Disk Image, select the vault's .sparsebundle file (rename a .nosync vault first, as above) and click Open.
3. Enter the password in the window that appears. The vault shows up in Finder's sidebar and in Disk Utility's.

Open it in Terminal (hdiutil)

The hdiutil command comes with every Mac and does what Finder does with disk images, with more specific error messages. It's what Doghouse uses behind the scenes, and it opens a .nosync vault as it is, with no renaming. The commands below are from the hdiutil reference.

# A vault called Family, saved in Documents. For your own vault,
# type the command and a space, then drag the vault file onto the window.
# A .nosync vault works as it is: no renaming needed.

# Check that it's an encrypted image (no password needed)
hdiutil isencrypted ~/Documents/Family.nosync

# Unlock it. hdiutil asks for the password; nothing shows as you type.
hdiutil attach ~/Documents/Family.nosync

# Or unlock it read-only, so nothing inside can be changed
hdiutil attach -readonly ~/Documents/Family.nosync

# Lock it again, using the /Volumes/… path that attach printed
hdiutil detach "/Volumes/Family"

-readonly is the safe way to look. Nothing inside can change, which is ideal for checking what's there or copying files out of an old backup. For more commands, such as changing the password, see our disk image guide.

On another Mac (and what about Windows?)

A vault is a self-contained file, so it moves like any other. Lock it, copy the vault file to the other Mac on an external drive or over the network, then double-click it there and enter the password. No Doghouse, licence or account needed.

• It stays encrypted on the way. Anyone who gets the copy sees an encrypted file, not your documents.
• Keep one copy as the real one. Add files to both and you end up with two different vaults.

Windows and Linux

Windows can't open Apple disk images on its own, encrypted or not. If you need the files on a PC, open the vault on a Mac and copy out what you need.

After uninstalling Doghouse

Vault files live in Documents or wherever you saved them, not inside the app. Moving Doghouse to the Trash leaves them where they are, still encrypted and still openable with the methods above. It doesn't clear Doghouse's vault list or the passwords it saved in your keychain either. Before you uninstall:

1. Lock every vault. The panic shortcut ⌃⌥⌘L locks them all at once.
2. Check you have each vault's password somewhere that isn't inside a vault. If you saved them in Keychain, look them up now.
3. Note where each vault file is. Reveal Vault File in Finder shows you.

Doghouse itself doesn't expire either: free for one vault, forever, a one-time licence for unlimited, and no account.

If you reinstall later or move to a new Mac, choose Add Existing Vault… in Doghouse and pick the .nosync or .sparsebundle file. It goes straight back on the list; type its password once, and Doghouse can remember it again. One caution: Remove from List keeps the vault file but deletes the password Doghouse saved in your keychain, so look the password up first.

From a Time Machine backup

Time Machine backs up the vault file itself, so your backups are as encrypted as the original. To get a vault, or one file from it, back:

1. Lock your current vault first.
2. Restore the vault file. Open the folder the vault is saved in, then open Time Machine. Browse to the date you want, select the vault file and click Restore. Restored items return to their original location. If you're asked about an item with the same name, keep both.
3. Open the restored copy with the password the vault had when that backup was made. hdiutil attach -readonly lets you look and copy out what you need without changing anything.

Doghouse keeps vaults out of iCloud by default, so a local backup is your safety net. See keeping a folder out of iCloud and how disk images back up.

Finding the password

Every method on this page needs the vault's password. There are two places to look.

Your own record

A password manager, or wherever you wrote it down. This is the most reliable copy, because it doesn't depend on any one Mac.

Your keychain

“Remember password in my Keychain” is on by default when you create a vault, so there's a good chance the password is in the keychain on that Mac.

1. Open Keychain Access. Since macOS Sequoia it's no longer in the Utilities folder, but Spotlight still finds it: press ⌘ Space and type “Keychain Access”.
2. Search for “KnoxFolder”. Doghouse files its saved passwords under that name, left over from the app's original working title, so searching for the vault's name or “Doghouse” won't find them. There's one entry per vault, and its Account is the vault's ID: match it against the id next to the vault's name in vaults.json. Entries whose Account isn't a long ID hold licence details, not passwords.
3. Double-click the entry and tick Show password. You'll be asked for your keychain's password, which is usually your Mac login password.

The Passwords app (macOS Sequoia and later) is worth a search too, but it's built around website and app sign-ins, so Keychain Access is the surer bet.

If you gave the vault a password hint, it's in vaults.json too, as passwordHint. Doghouse stores hints as plain text, as it warns when you add one, and a hint can't unlock anything on its own.

What you give up without the app

Same files, same encryption. What goes are the conveniences Doghouse adds on top.

So eject the vault when you're done: nothing locks it for you until you eject, log out or shut down. Lock your screen when you step away. And assume Spotlight can index it while it's open; ejecting ends that. For Touch ID options, see locking a folder with Touch ID.

Troubleshooting

• password
  The password isn't accepted. Check Caps Lock and your keyboard layout. For a restored copy, try the password it had when the backup was made. Then check your keychain. Past that, there's no reset.
• error
  “No mountable file systems” or “Failed to mount filesystems”. macOS couldn't mount what's inside. Reported causes include damage, a nearly full drive and permissions; some older images have failed after a macOS update. Try a copy on your internal drive, another Mac, or an earlier version from Time Machine. Never experiment on your only copy.
• edit_off
  It opened read-only. It was opened with -readonly, or the vault file is somewhere macOS can't write to, such as a backup disk or a drive formatted for Windows. Copy it to a normal folder on your Mac and open the copy.
• touch_app
  Double-clicking opens a folder, or does nothing. A .nosync vault opens as a folder: close it without touching anything, then rename it to .sparsebundle or use hdiutil attach in Terminal. If nothing happens at all, the vault may already be open, so check Finder's sidebar. Terminal also says what went wrong.
• eject
  It won't eject. A file inside is still open. Close it, quit the app and try again. If it still won't go, Apple suggests logging out and back in. Force-ejecting can lose unsaved changes.

More fixes: disk image troubleshooting.

Frequently asked questions

About this guide

Written by the Doghouse team at Sprout Media in Dublin. Doghouse vaults are standard Apple encrypted disk images, and this guide covers opening them with macOS alone. Details of how Doghouse names, stores and remembers vaults come from the app itself; macOS steps are checked against Apple's documentation for macOS Tahoe 26, and older names are noted where they differ.

Published 10 September 2026 · Last updated 10 September 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.

Sources

1. See the contents of a disk image on Mac — Apple Support
2. Create a disk image using Disk Utility on Mac — Apple Support
3. Intro to Disk Utility on Mac — Apple Support
4. Restore items backed up with Time Machine on Mac — Apple Support
5. View the information stored in a keychain on Mac — Apple Support
6. Find saved passwords and passkeys on your Mac — Apple Support
7. If you can't eject a disk on Mac, try these solutions — Apple Support
8. hdiutil command reference — SS64
9. Keychain Access app in new location on macOS Sequoia — Der Flounder
10. Sparsebundle: no mountable file systems — Apple Community
11. Disk image won't open after installing macOS Tahoe 26.2 — Apple Community