Figured out how to access Mega cloud storage on Android via Roundsync (Rclone)

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Hi all,

As some of you do, I use Mega cloud storage. There is no direct way to access mega cloud storage from cryptomator. On Windows 11, when I have Mega running in the system tray, Cryptomator for Windows sees and uses it.

What about Android?

There is no Cryptomator cloud support for Mega. Rclone via Roundsync on Android DOES!!

I just figured out a way to make it work successfully.

For Android there is a free client called Roundsync. It is Rclone for Android.

Rclone supports Mega!

So, all you need to do is install and configure a remote for your Mega account in Roundsync.

Then, Cryptomator, when you choose “Open from”, Roundsync will appear as one of your choices. Then you select the remote that you just created for your Mega account and then you will see your Mega files/folders and can create or access a Cryptomator vault.

You can download Roundsync for Android from Github-Roundsync.

Let me know if you need further explanation or some screenshots from my phone configuration.

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Additional information:

Roundsync for Android supports many cloud providers, so, if you can’t find the one you need inside Cryptomator directly, chances are it’s supported in Roundsync.

Rclone runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux, It supports over 40 cloud providers, and it’s open-source!!

This way you can use cryptomator to encrypt and protect your data pretty much anywhere you store it.

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Thanks for the hint, but I cannot see roundsync in the choice list of cryptomator.
Anything special I have to set up after connecting a mega account to roundsync?

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Yes. I will post instructions later today.

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Any new information?

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@electricar , My apologies! I begin writing out instructions and they became too complicated to follow.

I decided to do a short screencast video demoing the actual configuration setup so that all you need to do is watch and repeat.

Because of the extreme delay, I will do my best to get this done later today.

UPDATE:

i have a draft of a video I need to do another take and edit things together and it will be a complete video tutorial on how to use Mega and kryptonator and Android and doing so using rclone.

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@LeoW Heyo! Did you manage to finish your video?

I setup cryptomator and added a local storage connection to roundsync. I can download existing files but I can’t upload via the cryptomator app, it tells me “An error occured.”

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@Urologist5946 ,

Congratulations getting as far as you did.

Unfortunately, the document provider feature of round sync is not bug free and file transfer only works from the server down to the phone and not in the other direction.

I have been waiting for the developer to fix this, but it does not appear to be a priority. He knows it’s broken, It’s just that he’s one person and doesn’t work on round sync very often. I don’t even know if he knows how to fix the uploads. It’s the same for all providers.

Leo.

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All,

Here is a great new find, that uses similar technology, only it’s WAY BETTER.

File transfers work in both directions reliably.

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I cant make it to work with RSAF, MEGA detects all mobile uploads as malware, “file fingerprint missing” and it removes them.

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Hi, @great_shawk

First off, I would highly recommend creating the Vault using a desktop version of the software rather than the mobile version.

When you created your vault in Cryptometer did you create the vault locally and then use the mega sync client to synchronize it up to their cloud drive? I’ve never tried that before but I will give it a try and test it.

Personally, I use a program called Rclone to mount my Mega cloud drive to a letter in Windows, or a folder in Linux. If you need help with this software on your desktop platform let me know and I can provide instructions.

Make sure you have the latest version of our RSAF installed because it has been updated in the last few weeks.

In RSAF Settings, you need to enable:

“Pretend to be local storage”

“Allow local storage access”

On your mobile device, go into Cryptomator and choose the plus sign and then add an existing vault. You need to choose local storage as the location of your vault. Then you need to choose the plus sign to add a location for that vault, and you’ll be presented with a file folder list. Click on the menu in the upper left corner with the three bars otherwise known as the hamburger menu, scroll down until you see the rsaf remote for your Mega’s account. If you haven’t created a remote for Mega in that software program first you need to go back and do that.

You need to navigate to the folder that is one level above the location where the vault is and choose that as the location for the vault. Then you will have the option to open that and navigate one folder down to the folder that has the crypto key in it that you need to select to complete the operation of setting up the vault on your cell phone.

Once you have successfully created the Vault location in the software on your mobile phone you simply open the vault put in your password and open it and when you do that you’ll have a plus sign in the lower right hand corner that will let you upload files to your vault. These files will be uploaded over an encrypted connection and the Cloud Server in this case Mega has no idea what you are copying up to the server so there’s no way they can tell you that whatever it is you’re doing is a virus or anything at all.

Let me know if you have any further questions because I want to make sure you were successful. I know it works because I use it every day.

For easy mounting Mega as a drive in Windows, there is a new program for Windows that is still in beta, but it works! It makes using Rclone a snap with its great GUI.

https://rcloneview.com

There is another free program for mapping a drive letter to Mega in Windows that is also free and VERY EASY to configure.

It’s called Raidrive

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@great_shawk

I have duplicated your errors with the mega client for Windows. It looks like you created a vault on your local computer and then used the mega client to synchronize it up to the cloud drive and that is how you are accessing your vault between your PC and the cloud and this is where the problem is. I’m getting the same fingerprint areas that you are. I don’t get these errors when I use Rclone to mount the vault as a remote cloud drive and have cryptometer directly access the vault on the cloud drive rather than synchronizing it back and forth between the cloud and my local drive.

Mega errors
Mega errors1172Ă—905 139 KB

Are THESE (in the picture) the errors that you get?

The only way I know of to resolve this problem is to change the way you are using the cryptomator software and the synchronization client for mega and stop doing it that way and go with Rclone or Raidrive.

If the cloud server is detecting uploads as malware you don’t have something configured correctly because on your mobile device you should be opening a vault in Cryptometer and uploads from your phone to the server will be over the cryptometer encrypted connection so mega should not be able to detect anything. Considering they can something in your configuration is Askew.

Step one is to create the vault on your desktop version of Cryptomator and then use the mobile version to open the vault. You may encounter problems creating the vault on your mobile device.
See my other posting for the additional details. I can post either some pictures or a short video if necessary showing how to do this.

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Wow, first of all thanks for such a detailed and quick response. I use rclone too for backups.

Yes these are the exact errors i get when i try to upload from android. Uploading from pc works fine.

I think mega sees these .c9r files and recognizes them as malware, but who knows how their system works, i will try out your approach and tell how it goes.

only worry i have is that i wont have the option to make the files available offline like this, but dont know those tools yet so im hoping im wrong.

Also do you ever encounter sync errors/missing files when using those 3rd party tools to sync to mega?

And are you aware of any FOSS alternatives to the tools you mentioned (Raidrive and rcloneview)

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Hi, @great_shawk

  1. The raidrive option is a free option from a company that sells the software so you can use this entirely for free and not be breaking any licenses or needing to buy anything so no worries there. They make you pay for options that are in addition to what you get for free from them and they give you Mega access for free so no worries.

  2. Rcloneview at least for now is entirely free. I don’t know what the company will do after they exit beta. Right now there is no charge and there is no option to buy anything on their website. They are simply an Rclone GUI.

Rclone can be used by itself as a command line app downloading it directly from the developers website and that is as I’m sure you know from using it on Linux is free open source software. If you would like a graphical user interface for Rclone on Windows there is a program on GitHub called Rclone Browser and it’s no longer in production but it works and it’s free open source software. It’s also included in many distro repositories including Ubuntu and mint for example.

I don’t use the mega client to synchronize my cryptomator vault between my PC and the cloud so I never see these errors. They are generated by the synchronization program for Windows I believe.

I keep my Vault exclusively in the cloud on the mega server so yes you are correct I do not have offline no internet access to my data. This has yet to present a situation that bothers me in any way because I don’t use my computers if I’m not connected to the net and my phone is always connected to the net and just as yours is. You can access any of your files anytime you want to on your phone if you want a particular file offline you simply download it to your phone.

RSAF will give you access to everything on your mega Cloud Drive directly that is not inside a vault. Just run the program and choose your remote and tell it you want to open it in the very first option at the top and choose the Google files app to view your files on the Cloud Server and you’ll see everything including the files that are encrypted by cryptomator.

On Windows I run Rclone as a service so when Windows boots it automatically mounts my drives without me having to do anything. There are instructions for doing this using a free tool in the rclone docs. I can point them to you if need be.

Let me know if you have any other questions. My goal is to make sure that anyone who wants to take advantage of RSAF which is a program that is open source and uses the open source Rclone software.

On another note there is a separate application on GitHub that you might find interesting it’s also on fdroid for download. It’s called Roundsync.

Roundsync is exclusively for Android and is a fancy implementation of Rclone for Android and gives you the ability to not only mount a remote but to create tasks that will copy and synchronize files between your cell phone and any one of the supported Cloud providers. I use it to backup my text messaging files to an SFTP server on a daily basis for example it can be done automatically at a set time every day.

Happy hunting and let me know if you have any other bumps that you run into.

No, don’t have any synchronization issues to report using this configuration.

Everything that I use here and am recommending is either a free option from a company or completely open source.

If you would like your vault available offline on your PC you can do that if you synchronize it down using Rclone rather than using the mega client which is what is detecting those files as malware.

Considering you are a paid customer of Mega I would consider the option of submitting a technical support request letting them know that what they’re detecting is a false positive which is true. Perhaps there is a bug in there client sync software they can fix.

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Changed my setup from MEGA Client app to connecting with “rclone mount” and creating a cryptomator vault inside that, the problem still remains, cryptomator files disappear when uploaded from android

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Hmm,

I need to take a closer look at this and do some more test uploads. Unfortunately I am in the midst of preparing for a massive Category 5 hurricane that is going to hit my town in a matter of hours going into tomorrow so I will try and take a look as soon as I can about what made else could be contributing to your difficulties.

Btw, I have two Mega accounts one is a regular mega account which I presume is what you have and I also have the mega S3 compatible storage account as well so I will compare and contrast the two and see if one behaves differently than the other.

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Oh, if thats the case, dont worry about me, i can figure it out myself, use some other drive or sth. I hope you and your family will stay safe.

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Hi,

I did a quick test with Roundsync as the conduit. It works fine. I uploaded 10 pictures and did a refresh and there are still 10 pictures and I can see them in Windows.

Rsaf is now doing to me what you are seeing. I can upload files and then when I refresh the file list the folder is empty. When I swapped out the rsaf software for roundsync it started working the way that I normally am accustomed to it working.

It’s looking like something is going on with RSAF.

After the Storm is passed and I have power internet I will post a message to the rsaf developer and see if he has some advice and he might want to collect some information from me.

UPDATE:
Creating a new folder works, the bug seems to only pertain to files.

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Do you think the older versions of the app might work? And are you okay from the storm?

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Yes, thanks i survived the storm okay with minimal damage to my roof that will be inspected tomorrow.

I would presume so but I haven’t tried it yet I will give it a try you can do the same and see if it works.

Well,

I downgraded from version 128 to 127 to 126 and they all have the problem so I need to speak to the developer.

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