Accessing (encrypted) iCloud documents remotely / query about 'localhost' folder

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Hi Michael

Thanks for your answers! They make sense. I’ve tried accessing my files from a different Apple device and have done so successfully.

However, the way that I’m being prompted to do so is raising a question about how I’d access this encrypted folder a PC or a machine which didn’t actually the iCloud synced to the machine itself (i.e., a machine which didn’t have files - in Finder, in a Mac’s case - that are mapped to sync to their destinations in iCloud.

Here’s what I’m doing:

  1. Log in to iCloud on a new device, and navigate to the encrypted folder

  2. Inside, I can see 2 folders (containing encrypted, nonsensical items) and 2 files (‘masterkey’, and ‘masterkey backup’).

  3. I click on ‘masterkey’ to download it.

  4. Once it’s downloaded, it opens Cryptomator on my current device.

  5. Cryptomator shows a new vault called “/Downloads”, and prompts me to create a new password for it. [If I do that, and click ‘Create Vault’, it says ‘Vault Already Initialised’. (This is, I’m assuming, to make sure someone can’t just created a new encrypted folder to see the contents of my folders - as you said in your reply above.)]

  6. Instead, I click on ‘Open Existing Vault’.

  7. Here’s the bit I have questions about. Cryptomator now takes me to my Finder to select a folder. Because I’m on a Mac that happens to have my iCloud synced to it, I can navigate to the correct folder that’s synced with my iCloud drive on the computer, and I can successfully open the encrypted folder.

However, what if I were accessing this data on a PC, or a Mac that didn’t have my Apple ID logged in, and so could only access the files through iCloud’s web platform - iCloud[dot]com?

I.e., if I weren’t able to tell Cryptomator to navigate to a folder in iCloud Drive (i.e., not simply a folder on iCloud.com), how would I open an existing vault in (7) above?

I hope that’s clear, and that the distinction between files accessed through the machine (a direct link to my iCloud drive) and files accessed through iCloud[dot]com, is clear. I know that in both scenarios the data is still stored on the cloud; it’s more a case of how I would access these files if I could only access them through the website.

Thanks again!