Sure, I get that :) I’m not thinking that Cryptomater should be responsible for the syncing of anything but I was unclear that at what point in the process the encrypted file would be uploaded. Now obviously that will vary depending on the sync service you use but the important point (for me) was when the file was encrypted and moved i.e. immediately or when the Vault was saved/closed.

Thanks again to you for the explanation, I feel I understand the process much better now :)

Thanks very much for the time you’ve taken to explain this to me, I really appreciate it :)

So, just to recap so I’m sure I’ve understood…

1. I drop a file into an open Vault (which is really a service which runs in an allocated part of RAM) and it gets encrypted immediately
2. That encrypted file is then placed into Dropbox immediately?Or is the file placed there when the ‘Vault’ is saved/closed?

Thanks for your answers :)

because the files are encrypted already

So its the case then that the minute I add/amend a file to a Cryptomater Vault its encrypted immediately? Not when the Vault is closed? Because you then say:

It’s like: open Cryptomator as fake drive -> drag and drop file -> it is encrypted and then saved -> Dropbox sees change -> encrypted file is sent.

Which tends to indicate the opposite - that the encryption only occurs when the Vault is saved/closed.

I guess I’m confused about Vaults. Are you saying Cryptomater stores the Vault until the moment its closed/encrypted and ony then moves those encrypted files to Dropbox?

I know it’s a privacy community, but what’s wrong with leaving the vault open in the background?

Well, because the upload only happens when the Vault is closed (I think?) and seeing that Dropbox/OneDrive users (whom Cryptomater specifically targets) normal expectation is that files are uploaded immediately I think its worth them understanding that that’s not what happens.

So I have about 2gb of various files that I backup to an external drive using a bash script that detects changes and makes a copy and moves it but I’d also like to have a backup offsite copy. If I used Dropbox or OneDrive or whatever my expectation - because it doesn’t seem to claim otherwise in Cryptomaters documentation - would be that it does that same thing, but now encrypted. If thats wrong, as seems to be the case, people should be made aware of that don’t you think?