Licensing & Activation
Transfers
What to expect when you move to a new phone or a new computer, and how device and machine transfers are handled.
Moving to a new phone or a new computer is common. What happens depends on what the license is bound to, and in most everyday cases there is nothing to transfer at all.
New phone: nothing to transfer
A hardware device's license lives on the device, not on your phone. So switching phones is not a license transfer.
- Install the mobile app on the new phone and re-pair your device.
- The device is still licensed. Its licensed features are available again as soon as you connect.
- There is no per-phone limit and no per-device login. You can also use the same device from more than one phone.
Deleting the app, moving to a new phone, or re-pairing does not cost you a license and does not require re-activation. The credential is on the hardware.
New computer: re-activation, not automatic
The desktop software (OSINT and Proxy) ties its license to the machine it was activated on. That binding is what the wrong machine license state refers to, a license activated on one computer does not automatically light up on another.
If you move to a new computer, expect to re-activate there rather than have the license follow you silently. Reinstalling on the same machine keeps you activated; the machine binding is unchanged.
Moving a device or a license to someone else
The sources for this documentation do not describe a self-serve, in-app flow for transferring a hardware device or a software license to a different machine or a different owner. Rather than guess at a process that may not exist, we will say so plainly.
For moving a license to a new machine, re-issuing after a hardware change, or transferring ownership of a device, contact ZeroTrace support. There is no documented self-serve transfer flow at this time, so support is the right path, and the safe one.
When you get in touch, the products can produce a redacted diagnostic you can share, which strips identifiers and secrets first, so you are never handing over anything sensitive to describe your situation.
Reinstalling
Reinstalling is not a transfer and is always free:
- Mobile app: reinstall and re-pair; the device stays licensed.
- Desktop software: reinstall on the same machine; it stays activated.
- ZeroTrace Desktop: no activation applies, it is ungated today, so there is nothing to restore.
See also Offline and local storage for where the license is kept.