Please Help -- Vault disappeared, can't decrypt content

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1

hi everyone.

that’s what happened: 1) i moved my googledrive folder into a vault and 2) locked it. then 3) cryptomator told me the vault couldn’t be found. then 4) i deleted this vault from the list, after having been told that nothing would happen to the encrypted files. now 5) i can’t access my files. how can i decrypt them?
PLEASE, HELP ME. ALL MY STUFF IS THERE.
IF I CAN’T ACCESS THESE FILES, EVERYTHING IS GONE.
I MEAN, EVERYTHING.

thank you very much in advance.

2
  1. You should really think about doing backups.
  2. where is your vault located local? You had to select a local path during vault creation. Is there still a folder „d“ and a Masterkey file available in said vault folder? If yes, double click the Masterkey file to add your vault to Cryptomator again.
  3. writing in capital does not help at all :wink:
  4. what could help is providing a logfile (but lets begin with searching for your local encrypted files by answering #2
1 Like
3

hi, michael. thank you for your quick reply.
now the folder with all the encrypted files is located in "C:\Users\USER\Google Drive:
image
but initially, ‘google_drive’ (it was the vault’s name) contained ‘Google Drive’, and not the other way around, and was located under ‘This PC’. now, when i open ‘google_drive’, it contains ‘d’ (with all the folders inside) but not the masterkey, which can’t be found via ‘Search’ field either.
where do i find the logfile?
and sorry for the caps. i was (and still am) quite anxious…

thank you again.

4

Hi.
please look at any recycle bin you have available and search for the masterkey file. (local system, local hard drives, google drive, etc). Maybe you have deleted it by accident. Search your complete system for that file also. Maybe you have just moved it by accident.
If you are not able to restore the masterkey file (or one of its backups, named “masterkey.cryptomator.XXXXXXXX.bkup”), you can stop searching for a solution because you will never decrypt your files again.

FYI:
The “d” folder is your encrypted data.
The logfile: Where is the log file located?

The folder “Google Drive” is automatically created by google backup and sync, if googles backup and sync tool does not find the “Google Drive” folder where it is configured to be.
Therefore it was not a really a good idea just to move the “Google Drive” folder to a vault called “google_drive” without telling googles backup and sync tool that the folder that it has to sync is from now on the folder where your vault “google_drive” is located. Usually you place your vault into the “Google Drive” folder so it is automatically included into googles backup and sync.

5

nope. the only masterkey (+backups) i can find is that of a new vault i created afterwards. may it be helpful in some way?
the same question regarding the log file: may it be of any use by now?

anyway, thank you again for your informative answers ))

6

It is very curious that you (or something else) deleted the files and the recycle bin Version at the same time.
Also I assume the logfile won’t show anything useful because it does not log if files are deleted or moved outside the vault.

Edit: just thought about a post from @tobihagemann where he explained how to „recreate“ a Masterkey file from a restoration key. So: if you still have the restoration key for your vault, maybe this will work for you as well:

1 Like
7

ok, thank you. finally, i managed to do this workaround with the old restoration code, so now my files are accessible again.

thank you so much.