Questions and answers

Yes. Go to For website owners, fill in a few details, and we write an email for you to send to your web person. They write the continuity plan and send it back to you, or to whoever you choose, such as your IT or security lead.

Yes. Download the Word or Excel template and fill it in by hand.

No. There is no Spare Key server. Lookups run in your browser and send only the domain name, to public lookup services. Everything else stays in your browser until you save the inventory file. Check it yourself.

A service holding the keys to other people’s accounts would be a target, and would itself become a single point of failure. Record where passwords are kept instead, for example a password manager your client can reach.

A plain-English Word document explaining what their website and email depend on, who pays for what, what to do in the first week if you were unable to work for a long time, and what still needs fixing. Give them the inventory file too, so anyone can update it later.

Spare Key recognises the common registrars, hosts and email providers. If it cannot tell who a provider is, it says so rather than guessing. Edit the service and type the provider’s name.

Some registries do not publish registration data in a form Spare Key can read. Look the date up in the registrar’s account and add it to the registration service.

Open the inventory file with “Open inventory”, press “Check again” on each domain, update anything that has changed, and download a fresh document.

Yes. Put yourself in as the client and a family member or friend as the emergency contact.

Nothing breaks. The documents and inventory files work without it, the file format is published, and the code is open source, so anyone can run their own copy.

An address your organisation used before a rename, a merger or a new website. If it lapses, anyone can buy it along with its old links and search listings, and use your name to sell things. Add old addresses in step 02 and Spare Key checks who holds them now. See the domain name policy.

Yes. On For website owners, choose “Someone else” and add their name, role and email. Your web person’s email to send the plan goes to them.

Yes. Lookups work for most endings, including .com, .org, .net, .dev and many country endings. Where a registry doesn’t publish its records in a form Spare Key can read, the renewal date is left for you to add.

No. It is free and open source.