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Protect confidential files in OneDrive

Problem: Grade lists, assessments and support plans should be available on every device – but not stored in plain text at Microsoft, Google or any other cloud provider.

Solution: a personal vault in a OneDrive folder. Krywerk encrypts every file before OneDrive uploads it and shows you the vault as a normal drive.

Result: OneDrive only syncs encrypted files with unreadable names. You keep working with Word, Excel and all other programs as usual.

Prerequisites

  • Krywerk is installed (Installation).
  • OneDrive (or another sync folder) is set up on the computer.

Steps

  1. In Krywerk, choose “+ Add” › “Personal vault or existing folder …”.
  2. Leave the format at “Modern (recommended)”.
  3. Under “Folder for the vault”, choose a new, empty folder inside your OneDrive folder, e.g. OneDrive – School\Confidential.
  4. Enter a password and repeat it. It cannot be recovered – store it in a password manager.
  5. Optionally tick “Remember password” and “Mount automatically”: the drive is then available right after every sign-in to the computer.
  6. “Save” – Krywerk creates the vault and mounts it as a drive (Windows: its own drive letter, macOS and Linux: under ~/Krywerk).
  7. Copy files to the new drive or save them there directly.

Krywerk with a mounted personal vault

What it looks like

In the drive In the OneDrive folder
Grade list 10b.xlsx d/QJ/7LTF…/Qz4fKw0mT2hL….c9r
Support plan Jonas.pdf d/QJ/7LTF…/Hs7Lq2Vn0bXk….c9r

Never open or rename the files in the OneDrive folder directly – only use the drive.

On other devices

  • Second computer: install Krywerk there as well, choose “+ Add” and select the existing vault folder in OneDrive; enter the password.
  • Smartphone: the Cryptomator app (Android, iOS) opens the same vault, because Krywerk uses the open Cryptomator format.

Next steps