by Matt Zimmerman
ZimmWriter’s secure mode feature is designed to protect your lifetime license key when you’re letting a virtual assistant (‘VA’) access it.
But…
I’d actually recommend getting your VA a subscription. That way, when you part ways, you can simply cancel their ZimmWriter subscription on Gumroad.
However, some folks have lifetime licenses and want to allow a VA to use them. (Remember, each license – whether it’s a subscription or lifetime – is for one seat only. So if you want your VA to use a license, that means no one else should be using it either, including yourself).
Before I explain how to set up secure mode, let me explain what it does.
We need a way to let your VA use your license, without actually letting them see your license key. If they discover your license key, that’s bad news. But it’s not enough to just encrypt your license key. We also need a way to block their access from using your ZimmWriter license when you let them go.
Enter secure mode.
When secure mode is properly enabled, your VA’s copy of ZimmWriter will stop working when you revoke your their text API keys from the AI providers (e.g., OpenAI, Groq, Anthropic, OpenRouter).
So let me explain how to set it up step by step:
Step 1 – Go to my secret training page and download the latest version.
Step 2 – Unzip it somewhere on your computer.
Step 3 – Start it up and it will ask you for your email + license key. Enter the one that you are going to have your VA use.
Step 4 – ZimmWriter will ask you to add a text API. Create one at your AI provider (e.g., OpenAI, Groq, Anthropic, OpenRouter) for your VA, and then enter it into ZimmWriter.
Step 5 – Go in the ZimmWriter options menu, click “Setup Text API” and add additional text APIs that you’ve created for your VA (this step is optional, but if you don’t do this, then more cannot be added later). Save and verify each one separately.
Step 6 – Go in the ZimmWriter options menu, click “Set Secure Mode”. When the secure mode menu appears, click the “Enable Secure Mode” button, and press the “Yes” button when the popup appears.
Step 8 – Setup anything else you want inside of ZimmWriter, such as ScrapeOwl, a Stability API key, etc.
Step 9 – Exit ZimmWriter.
Step 10 – Secure mode is now active. At this point you have two options…
Step 10 Option 1 – Zip up the entire ZimmWriter directory and send the zip file to your VA. They can now unzip the file and run ZimmWriter.
Step 10 Option 2 – Tell your VA to download ZimmWriter and just send them the “settings.ini” file that is in your ZimmWriter directory. Tell them to copy it into their ZimmWriter directory.
At this point, your VA should now be able to use ZimmWriter with your API keys and license. When you let them go, just revoke the text API keys from each respective provider (e.g., OpenAI, Groq, Anthropic, OpenRouter), and their ZimmWriter copy will stop working. You can then hire a new VA, go through this process again, and let your new VA use the license.
The one thing I would tell your VA though is to never change any of the API keys. Because if they do, it will break their copy, and you’ll have to go through this entire process again. Going through this process is not fun. It’s kind of a pain in the butt. So tell your VA not to mess with the API keys once you’ve set this up. Like I said before, it’s easier just to get them a subscription.
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