How elevo keeps a transfer yours
What travels between the devices, who can read it, what a code is, and what Amira Labs receives.
Device to device
A transfer is a connection between two devices. The files are read on the one that sends and written on the one that receives. They are not uploaded to a service, and no copy is kept anywhere in between.
Encrypted end to end
The connection between the two devices is encrypted from one end to the other. Each send gets an identity of its own, made for that send and used for nothing else, and the receiving device checks that it is talking to that identity.
Checked block by block
The code carries a fingerprint of the content. As the blocks arrive, each one is verified against it before being kept; a block that does not match is thrown away and fetched again. At the end elevo also confirms that every file announced has arrived.
When there is no direct path
Some networks do not let two devices reach each other. The encrypted traffic then passes through a relay run by a third party. The relay sees the network addresses of both devices and how much encrypted traffic goes by. It cannot read the files or their names. Settings can limit elevo to direct connections only, or to a relay of your own.
The code is the key
Whoever has a send code can receive what it offers, for as long as you keep offering it. Send it as you would hand over a key: to the person it is for. A code stops working when you stop offering, when its time runs out, or when your device goes offline. A code normally also carries the network addresses where your device can be reached; Settings can leave them out.
Codes and this site
Codes are written as addresses of elevo.click, so that one opened in a browser leads here. When that happens the code is part of the address the browser asks for, and so it reaches this site. The site does not record it, sets no cookies and runs no analytics; its hosting provider handles the request like any other. Pasted into elevo, a code goes nowhere but to the other device.
On your device
elevo reads only the files you choose to send, where they already are, without copying them. What arrives is put together in a hidden folder inside the destination and moved into place only once it is complete and checked. Nothing that was already there is replaced.
What Amira Labs receives
Nothing about your transfers: not the files, not their names or sizes, not who is on the other side. Once the Terms are accepted, the app reports a random identifier of the installation, the model of the device, and the versions of elevo and of the system, so that installations can be counted. Settings turns this off.
The app itself
On the Mac, elevo is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, and it runs with the hardened runtime. It asks for no account and no password.