Fold'em
  1. Help
  2. For keyholders and witnesses
For keyholders and witnesses

Can I step away?

Updated September 2026

Yes, from your status page, at any time, and it is better than holding a key and not answering. If you hold the key, they keep their protection and continue without a keyholder, and no early exit can complete in under fourteen days from that moment. Your device confirms it is you before it happens, so a forwarded link cannot do it for you. If you are a witness you simply stop being listed, and nothing about their protection changes.

Two different events with one name

Stepping away means one thing for a keyholder and a much smaller thing for a witness, and the pass says which one you are holding on its back before you ever look for the door.

If you hold the key, your leaving changes how their protection behaves. Their term carries on exactly as it was, none of their blocks move, and none of their days are lost. What changes is that there is no longer anybody to ask: their account returns to solo, and a fourteen day floor is written on it at that instant, so no early exit can complete sooner than fourteen days from your resignation. That floor only ever moves later, never earlier.

If you are a witness, your leaving removes your link and nothing else. No mode changes, no flag is written and no floor is raised, which is exactly what a role that holds no key implies. They keep their lock and their term either way, and that is the sentence your own card carries.

Neither version is something you can undo from your side. Once you have stepped away, the only route back is for them to invite you again.

The road out of a term, with no keyholder Two roads to the same place. Drawn faintly above, the keyholder road: you ask, your keyholder has seven days, then at least 72 hours, then the release is ready. Drawn fully below, the solo road: you ask, fourteen days pass, then the release is ready. A dashed line drops from the keyholder's decision onto the solo road, marked silence for seven days, because a keyholder who never answers sends you down this road too. Both roads end at the same held release: every shield stays up until you take it, for up to seven days. LEAVING EARLY, ON YOUR OWN You ask Maria, 7 days 72 h Release silence for 7 days lands here You ask 14 d fourteen daysthe full wait Release is ready THE SAME PLACE Held 7 days for you to take it every shield stays up until you do
Without a keyholder, an early exit is a fourteen day wait and then the same held release. A keyholder who never answers puts you on this same road.

Why it asks for Face ID

Your status link is a bearer link: it lives in an email and in a Wallet pass, and anyone holding it can read the page. Reading is harmless. Resigning is not, because a resignation lowers the protection standing behind somebody's commitment, so the link alone is not allowed to do it.

The keyholder resignation therefore sits behind the same device check the exit decision does. Your phone confirms it is you, and only then does the server accept the resignation. A forwarded link hits that check and stops.

What the check does not cover is stated as plainly: a stolen phone that is already enrolled is, to the server, you. The recovery for that case is on the user's side, because resending keyholder access rotates every credential and invalidates the old ones.

A witness has no such gate. There is no key, no exit to decide and no floor to raise, so the page posts the resignation directly.

Two moments it will refuse

The server checks two things before it lets a keyholder go, and both refusals protect the person you hold for from being left mid process with nobody answering.

It refuses while an exit request is open. Leaving at that instant would abandon a live decision, so the answer is to decide first, either by keeping the lock or by letting the seven days run, and to step away after.

It refuses while a handover is running. A change already has a designated successor and a clock; stepping out of the middle of one is a cancellation rather than a resignation, so the change is the thing to resolve.

Stepping away

  1. Open your status page

    Use the link you were emailed when you accepted, or the one on the back of your pass. The step away route lives here rather than on the card, because the card carries no controls at all.

  2. Read the consequence before you confirm

    The confirm page states it in full: they keep their protection and continue without a keyholder, no early exit completes in under fourteen days, your pass will show that it ended, and you cannot take this back from here.

    The step away confirm page, headed "Step away from Alex's key?", with Keep the key as the white button and Step away as a red outlined one below it.

    The step away confirm

  3. Keep the key is the easy answer

    Keep the key is the large first control, and Step away is the outlined one under it. The order is deliberate: the ending act is the smaller, later one, and nothing here is arranged to hurry you out.

  4. Your card says goodbye for a week

    After you step away, your pass reads Left, drops every other row, and keeps that one word for seven days before it stops answering. The person you held for is told that you stepped away.

What this does not do

Stepping away does not end their term, unlock their phone or shorten anything. Their apps stay sealed, their sites stay blocked and their day count carries on unbroken. It is not a way out for them, and the fourteen day floor exists so that it cannot be used as one.

It also does not delete anything you have already seen or been told, and it does not notify anyone but the person you held for. If you want to hand the key to a specific person rather than leave them without one, that is a handover, and only they can start it.

Still stuck? Email support@foldem.app and we answer within two working days.