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Work With Files

We focus on designing Boxcryptor as user-friendly and easy to use as possible. Once Boxcryptor is set up, you will not notice that your files are encrypted. Just keep working with your files as usual.

On-the-fly Encryption

Boxcryptor encrypts your data on-the-fly and it encrypts every file separately. When you work with your files there is no need for bulk decryption. You can just open any encrypted file and it's content will be decrypted automatically in the background. When you save your changes, the contents are encrypted automatically again. Simply work with your protected data with Boxcryptor without noticing the cryptographic process behind it.

2-1 Help On-the-fly Mobile We decrypt and encrypt your files on demand: Do you want to view your content? Just tap on it and we download and decrypt your file for you. Are you finished with writing your essay? Just send it to Boxcryptor and we encrypt the file and store it into the cloud.

Encryption and Permission Hierarchy

You can decide for every file or folder which security level you want to set. Boxcryptor gives you full control over this. You can allow others to access a file by giving permissions, you can choose if the filename should be encrypted as well, or you can leave single files and folders unencrypted.

To make things easier all properties of a file are inherited hierarchically from its containing folder. For example, if you have an encrypted folder called My Secret Files and add a file to this, the file will be encrypted automatically and the chosen permissions will be inherited. The same applies to whole folders.

2-1 Help Inheritance

inline-no-border Permission A Encrypted and permission to access for Alice

inline-no-border Permission B Encrypted and permission to access for Bob

inline-no-border Permission AB Encrypted and permission to access for Alice and Bob

Note: If you add a file to a folder that is not encrypted, Boxcryptor will automatically encrypt it.

Work With Your Files

With Boxcryptor, you never need to manually decrypt any data when you want to work with it.

The Boxcryptor Files app integration let you browse into folders or preview files by tapping on them. Boxcryptor will automatically download and decrypt files for you.

Features Within the Files App

With Boxcryptor within the Files app you can:

  • Edit and save files that are encrypted with Boxcryptor
  • Drag and drop files
  • Execute operations on multiple items at one go
  • Use advanced sorting options (Name, Date, Size, and Tags)
  • See thumbnail previews for downloaded content
  • Browse other cloud providers that do not have their own Files App integration

More features of the Files app can be found in Apple's own documentation.

Current Limitations

  • New files and folders will inherit the encryption status of their parent location.
  • New files and folders are always encrypted.

How to Recognize Encrypted Files

Boxcryptor allows you to have encrypted and unencrypted files and folders. Within the Files app, the encryption status is shown with the help of Tags:

  • inline-no-border Help iOS Badge Encrypted encrypted
  • inline-no-border Help iOS Badge Unknown unknown
  • Without tag: unencrypted

The encryption status of a folder is only determined when you browse the folder for the first time.

Encrypt Existing Files and Folders

Encrypting already existing files is currently not possible with Boxcryptor for iOS. Please use Boxcryptor for macOS, Boxcryptor for Windows or Boxcryptor Portable to migrate your existing files.

Work With Filename Encryption

Filename encryption effectively prevents outsiders from analyzing your data structure. However, it also comes with the cost of a slightly slower performance and higher efforts regarding a proper setup. If you want to use filename encryption with shared files and folders, please read our blogpost, especially chapter 5, before proceeding.

A filename encrypted file will look like this: 怐悰挦抱沯抮殥枏曕擟敯漢怏搬濂檬浉楻挭抧柜欅䀣.bc

Filename encryption can be enabled globally. All new encrypted items that do not inherit encryption settings from their parent folders will be encrypted with filename encryption. Existing encrypted files, however, will not be touched, which means that you have to activate filename encryption for existing files manually. Filename encryption is one of the properties that files inherit from their parent folder. Therefore, if you save a file to a folder with filename encryption, it will have filename encryption as well.

Conclusively, even if filename encryption is enabled globally, new files that are created in a folder without filename encryption will also have no filename encryption due to the encryption property inheritance.

To enable filename encryption globally, open the Boxcryptor App, navigate to Settings and switch on Enable filename encryption.

Existing files without filename encryption will remain unchanged. Please use one of our desktop clients to activate filename encryption for your existing files.

How to Decrypt Files

You do not need to decrypt your files when working with Boxcryptor.

If there is a scenario in which you want to decrypt a file, here are some possibilities:

Camera Upload

The Camera Upload backs up any photo or video you take with your iPhone or iPad. All new photos or videos are saved automatically and encrypted to Boxcryptor Photos within your previously selected cloud provider.

The folder and all included files will have file name encryption turned on by default. File name encryption for Camera Upload cannot be disabled and the folder name cannot be changed due to technical reasons.

Not all cloud providers support Camera Upload because they may lack necessary write permissions.

To enable Camera Upload, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Boxcryptor App and navigate to Settings.
  2. Tap on Enable Camera Upload.
  3. Allow Boxcryptor to send notifications and give it access to all your photos
  4. Select a cloud provider you want to upload to. If you have only one compatible cloud provider added to Boxcryptor, it will be displayed and selected automatically.
  5. Select if you also want to use mobile data for uploading photos and videos.

To disable Camera Upload tap on Enable Camera Upload again.

The camera upload is scheduled to run daily and will do so if the conditions are satisfied:

  • correct network connection
  • device charging
  • sufficient available processing power

Solely iOS is responsible for triggering the camera upload and it can take up to 2-3 days even if all conditions are satisfied.

If the Boxcryptor app is closed (for example by tapping twice on the home button and swiping it away), the camera upload will no longer work until the Boxcryptor app ist opened again.