Cryptomator with OneDrive on Windows - constantly moving/renaming files

[Thierryloup]

Hi and first of all, big thanks to the devs for this wonderful app !

I use it for personnal use to backup a large amount of files I don’t want to loose (pictures, documents, music, virtual machines images etc…). The total size of those files are about 500Go.
My original files are stored on a 4To usb-HDD.

I backup those files each night to a second 2To usb-HDD with a Free FileSync .bat script so that my backup directory is a mirror of the original one, all deleted files go into a Recycle Bin in the backup drive.
This setup kind of saved my life recently as my main HDD failed. But I wanted to add an additional cloud based backup.

I backup my really important files on Spideroak but the available space is limited.
Considering the price of a secure and efficient cloud storage, I thought it could be a solution to use my (virtually free) professional 1To OneDrive space.
For obvious privacy reason, I would have to encrypt all my files on OneDrive, and that’s where Cryptomator enters the game.

So I set my local OneDrive vault as a folder on my backup drive, created a Cryptomator Vault inside it as a “PRIVATE” folder and set FreeFileSync to backup the files in the virtual Cryptomator drive.

As a result (after 2 days of transfer), I have : my original files on the first drive, my backup files encrypted on the second drive, the encrypted-version files one-way syncronized on OneDrive.
In theory, all should be good. But I have no way to check it easily as Cyberduck or the IOS Cryptomator apps are not allowed to access my professional Onedrive (as far as I remember I also had this problem with rClone). I guess the only way to test would be to download the whole folder from Onedrive and mount it in Cryptomator, then perform a comparison with the original folder ?? Or is it possible to download only the main Cryptomator files and then a set of individual files to unlock them and do a sample check ?

Second question :
I notice constant moving/renaming of files in the OneDrive app. Please see the picture below as an example. Is this the expected behavior ? Could it corrupt the files or create some kind of problem?
My Cryptomator vault stays unlocked permanently, maybe that’s the reason? Otherwise I should make a script in order to unlock it some time before the sync each night, then lock it again after its completion.

Many thanks in advance!

[Michael]

@Thierryloup

as Cyberduck or the IOS Cryptomator apps are not allowed to access my professional Onedrive (as far as I remember I also had this problem with rClone)

why not? prohibited by the company? (Im asking because I am heavily using OneDrive on a business account without any issues)

@Thierryloup

I guess the only way to test would be to download the whole folder from Onedrive and mount it in Cryptomator, then perform a comparison with the original folder ??

You can run a health check and have a look in the log of your OneDrive client. If both doesnt show errors, then you should be fine. You can also make a size comparison (which should work without having to download all files that OneDrive has not local anymore).

@Thierryloup

Or is it possible to download only the main Cryptomator files and then a set of individual files to unlock them and do a sample check ?

No

@Thierryloup

I notice constant moving/renaming of files in the OneDrive app. Please see the picture below as an example. Is this the expected behavior ? Could it corrupt the files or create some kind of problem?

Thats normal if you work with files. Every time a file in you vault is changed, the corresponding encrypted file is changing too.

[Thierryloup]

Thank you Michael!

@Michael

why not? prohibited by the company? (Im asking because I am heavily using OneDrive on a business account without any issues)

I guess it’s related to the security policy of my company. When I try to log-in with one of those third party apps, it tells me that I must have an admin-level Microsoft account.

@Michael

You can run a health check and have a look in the log of your OneDrive client. If both doesnt show errors, then you should be fine. You can also make a size comparison (which should work without having to download all files that OneDrive has not local anymore).

What do you mean by “health check”? I performed a Cryptomator Health Check, there is no error.
The OneDrive log files seem hard to read, I’ll try to install one of the tools to open them.
I made a global size and file number comparison, it seems OK but the size in OneDrive web interface is not really precise…if I could mount the online Onedrive folder I could do such analysis more easily but as I said, it’s locked.

@Michael

Thats normal if you work with files. Every time a file in you vault is changed, the corresponding encrypted file is changing too.

The thing is I don’t do anything with those files except one time a day for the FreeFileSync batch. That’s why it seems strange to me…Also, looking at the “Last modification” dates on OneDrive web interface I don’t notice all those transactions. The last ones are from this morning!
I even tried to let the Cryptomator vault locked and check if those messages still appear and that’s the case. So, I don’t know…The client keeps staying in “Looking for modifications” mode, then always finds 184 modifications and perform them without transfering anything…just those “renaming/moving”… can’t explain!