Hello,

Like many people, I have many files (text, pictures, …) on my Android smartphone; Files I don’t want to lose. I could use Google Drive or similar software to have a copy of files in the cloud in case my smartphone is destroyed/lost/stolen, but files would be stored unencrypted server-side, so we don’t want that. I’m looking for an E2EE solution to have a copy of the files in my phone on some cloud.

A common situation : you are on holidays, you only have your phone with you (no computer…). Near the end of the holidays, you break/lose your phone (or your backpack with your computer and phone is stolen). If your files are not synced/backed up in some cloud, you lose all your more recent files (including holidays pictures).

I searched for solutions, but found nothing good so far.

  • I considered Cryptomator for Android, but after 5,5 years the Document Provider API is still not implemented, despite the promises of the developers (they didn’t bother with a roadmap for 2023 for Cryptomator, it’s half abandoned with only cosmetic/bug fixes updates). There is no support for automation tools neither. So it does not seem appropriate.
  • Maybe a local encryption app, combined with a standard cloud sync app, could do the trick, but I have not found an efficient solution yet.

I’d like to know how you solved this problem for yourselves, or if you have any advice. It seems to be a common use case, I think it can be useful to many people.

note: I use Syncthing on a day-to-day basis to sync my files between my devices, but it won’t help in these situations.

(I hope my English is not too bad, it’s not my mother tongue, sorry)

  • @RunisOP
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    21 year ago

    Thank you very much for the very detailed answer !
    It seems well thought. It may require some work (through time) but the result seems very good, with nice security and usability.
    I’ll work on the first steps in the next months.
    I don’t have kids yet so I can break it all !!