this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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Help Me Understand The Cryptomater Process Please! (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 9 hours ago by constantreadarr@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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So, I want to encrypt my files with Cryptomater before they go to my cloud based backup service. Lets say I use Dropbox.

So I know I create a Cryptomater vault and give the location as a folder in Dropbox.

I can't see that Vault until I open it in Cryptomater, right? This means I can't add anything to that Vault unless its open on my machine. As its open, I'm assuming that the data I'm adding is unencrypted until I close the Vault?

Lets say I add a plain text file to an open Vault.

So, at what point does Dropbox upload that file? Is it the minute its added to the Dropbox environment? Because that would mean its unencrypted.

Or is it not uploaded until the moment the Cryptomater vault is closed? Because that would mean I'd either have to leave the Vault open the entire time I was on my device and possibly have to do one (potentially) big upload at the end of the day maybe or keep opening and closing the Vault every time I wanted to work with the Vault (edit an existing document, add a new one, delete one etc).

Or have I misunderstood the process? I hope so because it either sounds not very secure or not very usable.

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[–] constantreadarr@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Thanks very much for the time you've taken to explain this to me, I really appreciate it :)

So, just to recap so I'm sure I've understood....

  1. I drop a file into an open Vault (which is really a service which runs in an allocated part of RAM) and it gets encrypted immediately
  2. That encrypted file is then placed into Dropbox immediately?Or is the file placed there when the 'Vault' is saved/closed?
[–] heavydust@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Yes, the encrypted file is then placed immediately into the local Dropbox folder. Once again it's all very confusing but if I can sum that up, Cryptomator is not there to sync things, it's only there to show you a virtual hard drive.

[–] constantreadarr@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 hours ago

Sure, I get that :) I'm not thinking that Cryptomater should be responsible for the syncing of anything but I was unclear that at what point in the process the encrypted file would be uploaded. Now obviously that will vary depending on the sync service you use but the important point (for me) was when the file was encrypted and moved i.e. immediately or when the Vault was saved/closed.

Thanks again to you for the explanation, I feel I understand the process much better now :)