Skip to content
Cryptnook Vault
EN
How it works

Four steps, and the drive stays locked

Cryptnook Vault turns an empty USB drive into an encrypted vault. With your password it opens on Windows and Android; without it, what is inside cannot be read.

Step by step

From an empty drive to your vault

  1. Plug in the drive

    On Windows, the app detects it as soon as you plug it in. On Android, with a USB-C drive or an OTG adapter, the phone asks which app should open it.

    Start screen on the phone: the list of connected drives, one with a vault and an empty one to create it on.

  2. Create the vault

    On an empty drive, choose a long password and the vault takes up the whole drive. The password is not stored anywhere: it is the only key.

    Creating a vault on the phone: four warnings before you start, the password with its strength meter, and the confirmation.

  3. Add what you want to keep

    Drag whole folders on your computer, or use “Save to Cryptnook Vault” from the Share menu on your phone. Everything is encrypted on your device before it is written.

    A trip folder open on the phone: photos and videos grouped by month, and the button to add more.

  4. Lock it and unplug it

    Locking wipes the key from memory, and if you forget, it locks itself. If you yank the drive out, the vault is not damaged: at most, the last thing being saved is lost.

    Security settings on the phone: the vault is protected and offline, auto-lock after 5 minutes and fingerprint unlock.
Inside the drive

What is on the drive gives nothing away

If you open the drive in your file manager, you will only see a few files and a folder of chunks with meaningless names. This is what they are:

Whoever finds the drive will know there is a vault and how big it is. They will not know what is inside.

  • The header, twice

    It holds the vault key, wrapped with your password. It is stored twice so that a pulled drive in the middle of a write never leaves the vault unopenable.

  • The encrypted index, twice

    Names, folders, dates and tags. All of that travels encrypted, not in the file names.

  • The content, in encrypted chunks

    Each file is encrypted in chunks of up to 128 MiB, each bound to its file and position. That is why it works on FAT32 drives and a video can start at minute 40 without decrypting what comes before.

Windows and Android

The same vault on your computer and your phone

Both apps read and write exactly the same format. A vault created on your PC opens on your phone, and the other way round, with no conversion.

This is not just a promise: every change to either app is tested against reference vaults created by the other one, with accented and emoji names, empty files and huge files.

By default, the vault is created with the compatible profile, the one that opens on phones. If you will only use it on a PC, you can choose a profile that is harder to attack but that a modest phone may not be able to open, and the app warns you when you pick it.

Inside the app

A gallery, not a file manager

What you keep here is mostly photos and videos, and the app is built to make viewing them comfortable.

  • Thumbnails and dates

    A grid with a thumbnail of every photo, sorted by the date it was taken, with “On this day”.

  • Video without waiting

    A built-in player that jumps to any point without writing anything decrypted to disk.

  • Photo enhancement

    More sharpness, light, colour or resolution, offline and in a new copy. On Windows, with a more powerful model.

  • Compare and find duplicates

    Compare two photos to keep the good one, or look for repeats.

  • Documents and PDF

    Keep your ID, contracts or key backups, and read PDF files inside the app.

  • Folders and search

    Organise it your way and find things by typing.

  • Tags

    Give each photo or document the tags you want, on top of its folder.

  • Bin

    What you delete waits seven days, or the period you choose, in case you change your mind.

  • Backups

    Back up the vault, check that the backup can be restored and get a reminder to do it.

The gallery on Windows: folders at the top and the vault’s photos and videos in a grid by month.

Want to know how what you keep is protected?

See security