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Onetime Secret is a privacy-focused, ephemeral secret-sharing service: you put something sensitive behind a link, the recipient opens it once, and it’s gone. This documentation covers creating, sharing and managing those self-destructing messages — on the hosted service at onetimesecret.com, on an instance you run yourself, or through the API.

Core functionality

Onetime Secret provides a straightforward solution for sharing sensitive information securely:

1. One-time access — view shared secrets once, then they’re permanently deleted
2. No registration required — use basic features without an account
3. Customizable expiration — control secret availability with automatic deletion
4. Optional passphrase — add an extra security layer to shared secrets
5. Open-source — review our codebase for enhanced transparency

Where to start

The documentation is organised around what you’re trying to do. Pick the one that fits.

Evaluate — is this the right tool?

• Why use secret links — the problem one-time links solve
• Use cases — practical applications of Onetime Secret in various scenarios
• Hosted or self-hosted? — the first real decision, and the one everything else follows from
• Where your data lives — data locality and the available regions
• Compare plans — feature comparison across plans

Use — share secrets on the hosted service

• Send your first secret — the core action, end to end
• Sharing secrets — how one-time secret sharing works
• Security best practices — keep your shared secrets safe
• Custom domains — use your own domain for secret sharing, starting with the setup guide
• Glossary — what we mean by receipt, passphrase, organization, and the other terms that get used loosely elsewhere

Integrate — talk to Onetime Secret from your own code

• REST API — programmatic access, and the full API reference (v1, v2, v3)
• Client libraries — community SDKs and integrations

Operate — run your own instance

• Run your own instance — step-by-step setup
• Self-hosting overview — why and how to self-host
• Install with Docker — or install on Linux from a checkout
• Configuration — settings reference

Questions?

Contact us directly.