1. Encrypt existing LOCAL folder. 2. Search inside encrypted folder possible?

Help
1

Hello, happy new year to all!

Newbie Cryptonator user here, I am very intersted in using it.
I have 2 questions, I need some help, maybe someone could advise…:

  1. I would like to encrypt an existing local folder (with many contents). Can this be done, without having to create a new folder and then copy/paste files? Reason is that the folder is quite big with many files.

  2. I very often use search tools like “everything” to find files. BUT encrypted folder does not show as a drive in “enerything”, so it can be searched. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

2

Hi,

Question 1)
No. That’s not how Cryptomator works. With cryptomator you create vaults, that are designed for using them with an online provider. Of course you can use them only local, but I think there are more suitable apps for this purpose, like Veracrypt. However: If you want to encrypt something with Cryptomator, you’ll have to create a vault and then put the files in it. Cryptomator will not encrypt existing files (in the context of a of subsequent encryption of your lokal existing files). For this purposes: Veracrypt

Question 2)
this might interest you
https://community.cryptomator.org/t/cannot-access-cryptomator-mounted-drive-as-real-drive

3

Hello Michael,
Thanks for the reply.

My fault, I forgot to mention that after I encrypt the folder, my goal is to upload and sync it with the cloud.
So, to sum up, I need a cloud encryption tool that will preferably allow me to encrypt an existing local folder with contents. And this folder will be later synced with the cloud.
To be more precise, it’s “my documents folder”, located in d (2nd internal drive), if this helps.

So which tool is best for this?
I hope I am not confusing.

Thanks!

4

ok.
does not change the fact that if you want to use cryptomator, that you have to copy/move the files into your vault and sync the vault files with your online storage.
As you said, this is not a solution for you.
Im sorry, I dont have a recommendation for you what to use instead for your szenario (dont move the existing files).
Veracrypt is not suitable for your case also (from my point of view), because it will create one big file as container. If you want to sync this with your online storage, you’ll probably have to uploade the complete container every time you just change/add/remove a single file.

5

I am using both Veracrypt AND Cryptomator. The drawback with Verycrypt is the big container file and that is why I like Cryptomator for some other data files.
I even managed to replace 500 GByte on one unencrypted disk with Cryptomator vault. This not with copying/pasting but with moving the files. With this file moving, there is no space problem on the hard disk during the encryption process.

For cloud synchronization I am using the following method:
Veracrypt Folder —> Cryptomator Vault —> Cloud Folder
Verycrypt Folder —> NAS encrypted folder
I am editing my files in the veracrypt folder. These files are synchronized to the cryptomator vault with a real time backup tool. And the cloud folder and NAS folder is synchronized with a manual backup tool. With this method, I have multiple encrypted folders, which is a quite safe backup solution. And since the original folder is on veracrypt the search tool Everything can be used. I do not like a single source of files with cryptomator. Two or more independant local encryption locations with different technologies are always better.

I do not like/trust two way synchronization, that is why I create different folders for local —> cloud and cloud —> local. But that is another topic…

Best Regards