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Security & Privacy

Beekeeper offers several features designed to help you manage the privacy of your session, secure your environment, or enforce security settings for all users.

Security Settings

Beekeeper Studio has several security settings

[security]
disconnectOnSuspend = false
disconnectOnLock = false
disconnectOnIdle = false
lockMode = disabled ; disabled, pin, future: google, ldap, oauth; applies when connecting to any db
idleThresholdSeconds = 300 ; time before user is considered 'idle'
idleCheckIntervalSeconds = 30 ; time between idle checks
minPinLength = 6

PIN Lock Mode

Enabling PIN lock mode requires any Beekeeper Studio user to enter a pin code before connecting to a database. Combine this setting with auto disconnect for extra security.

Don't forget your PIN

If you forget your PIN, the only way to recover it is by deleting your local installation, or disabling PIN mode entirely.

Reset Steps (if you forget your pin)

  1. Close Beekeeper Studio completely

  2. Delete the application data directory:

  3. Windows: %APPDATA%\beekeeper-studio\
  4. macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/beekeeper-studio/

  5. Linux: ~/.config/beekeeper-studio/

  6. Restart Beekeeper Studio - it will start fresh with default settings

Enterprise Security Recommendations

To enforce security settings on all Beekeeper Studio users you can deploy an administrator configuration file (system.config.ini) (see Configuration docs for reference)

  1. Create an ini file
  2. enable lockMode = pin.
  3. Enable all 3 auto-disconnect options with reasonable timeouts
  4. Deploy this config file to the 'administrator configuration' location for your OS (see above)

This forces all users to set a PIN on first load of the app, requires pin entry when connecting to a database, and disconnects users when their system is locked, suspended, or idle.

Privacy Mode

Beekeeper Studio provides a Privacy Mode that hides sensitive data when you're sharing your screen, so you can keep private information private.

While hovering the Sidebar, you can see the "Toggle Privacy Mode" button, represented with an eye.
Clicking this button will toggle the Privacy Mode On/Off.

Privacy Mode Off Privacy Mode On
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Fig.1 Button Off Fig.2 Button On

What Gets Hidden?

Privacy Mode hides some fields that might be considered as sensitive:
- Host / Port / DB in Saved Connections
- Pop-up with the full URL on Hover
- Host / Port / DB in Connection Settings
- URL when hovering over the DB name after connecting

Hidden Host / Port / DB in Saved Connections The pop-up with the full URL on Hover
image image
Fig.3 - Hidden Feature 1 Fig.4 - Hidden Feature 2
Host / Port / DB in Connection Settings URL when hovering over the DB name after connecting
image image
Fig.5 - Hidden Feature 3 Fig.6 - Hidden Feature 4