What does an unlocked Vault mean?

Hi There,

I recently downloaded Cryptomator and started to have a play and was wondering:

  1. If I create a new vault on a cloud provider, and add files to encrypt, are the files stored on the cloud encrypted even while the vault is unlocked?
    … just wanting to confirm what locking the vault actually does - in addition to unmounting the virtual drive.

Many thanks in advance.

Cheers.

The vault is created local and not directly online.
The encrypted files are synced to your online storage via the sync tool of your storage provider.

Unlocking a vault means that you mount a virtual drive that works as an open door to your vault files.
But only locally.
Unencrypted vault files are never stored online.

More info how (tutorial)

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the prompt response!

Yes, what you describe is consistent with what I understood.
So it sounds like it doesn’t really matter whether the vault is locked or left unlocked, my files will remain encrypted on my online cloud storage either way.

The only benefit of locking the vault, is that the virtual drive (which is mounted locally) no longer becomes visible (in case anyone were to gain unauthorized access to my PC).

Is my understanding correct?

Cheers.

Yes that is correct.