#10

I don’t know about best, but one of the simplest is using a zip utility. Which leaves the vault portable.

Most OSs have the ability to encrypt folders. That’s pretty simple and built-in.

#11

Something like https://cryptdown.eu/ would be sweet as a plug-in that prompts you for the password and then encrypts/decrypts a note directly in Obsidian’s edit mode.

4 Likes
#12

Any alternatives to cryptodown ?

Would love to see built-in vault encryption, a useful feature so that a vault may be hosted on a cloud drive, but is only viewable by the owner, preventing bots and curious eyes from trawling through personal data.

1 Like
#13

Am also keenly awaiting encrypted vaults within Obsidian.

1 Like
#14

+1

Selective note encryption is a key missing feature.

#15

I’m missing it for the exact same reason.

#16

it could be that encrypted files are simply ignored, similar to hidden or unmounted partitions under Windows or Linux, etc.

#17

I’ve had a good experience with encrypting specific folders of my vault (or, an entire vault) using Boxcryptor. A pin is requested at startup, and if I fail to provide it that folder doesn’t appear when I open Obsidian as all the .md files are encrypted into gibberish (with a different extension).

3 Likes
#18

@icebear Would you mind explaining a bit more your process?
For example, is the pin requested when you open Obsidian or when the computer starts? What is the “different extension”?

#19

I need to launch Boxcryptor and enter the pin before launching Obsidian. Otherwise, Obsidian can’t find the vault at all. You can set up Boxcryptor to launch at start if you like.

Boxcryptor changes all file extensions to a different one (.ch?) while they are are encrypted. If you force them to open with Notepad you’ll just see encrypted gibberish. Once you enter the PIN in Boxcryptor they’ll open as proper .md files.

Edit: given the base functionality (as I use it) is free, I suggest downloading it and trying it out with a test vault, which is what I did at first.

#20

Would GPG style encryption work here? Maybe something like how https://www.passwordstore.org works?

#21

There is now a plug-in to encrypt portions of a note within Obsidian. See it here: GitHub - meld-cp/obsidian-encrypt: Hide secrets in your Obsidian.md vault or in the Community Plugins: “Meld Encrypt”

10 Likes
#22

This works great for me! Its nice that the decrypt part shows a popup and keeps the data encrypted.

#23

@fourteen

What would be the best way to encrypt a vault?

I wrote a little Howto here:

Might give you some inspiration…
And obsidian has a service as well for end-2-end encryption which I personally also consider to use as soon as my vault gets more used.

#24

Considering encrypting a single page or part of a page it could be consider an infile encryption like they are using with eYaml, example:

#25

obsidian has a service as well for end-2-end encryption

Wait, really? How do I enable this?

#26

It’s the Obsidian Sync service.

See Sync: Pricing - Obsidian

#27

Does someone work with boxcryptor on android phone ? With markor for example ?

#28

My impression was Boxcryptor couldn’t do what I needed on Android with Markor. Would be interested to learn otherwise, if you figure it out.

#29

I would love to selectively encrypt files and folders as well in obsidian in order to encrypt some sensitive information (wouldn’t want to have my bank account number, SSN, etc out in the open)

2 Likes