There have been a lot of changes in the past year. With this roadmap, we want to give you an overview of what has changed in Cryptomator and what you can look forward to in the coming months.
iOS Version
At the end of last year, we were finally able to introduce our new iOS app. One of the main features is the full integration with Apple’s own Files app. We also made it possible to offer you a “freemium” version of the app. If you want to know even more about the new features, check out this blog post. Since then, we’ve been working on bringing you more features through several updates, such as the auto-lock feature that came with version 2.1.0. With the just released version 2.2.0, we integrated pCloud and added support for shortcuts in Google Drive.
We have a lot more planned for the app in the coming months. We will integrate Cryptomator into Shortcuts so that automation processes such as “auto photo upload” are possible. We also plan to integrate S3, as we did with our Android app.
Android Version
Over the past few months, we have been working on increasing the compatibility of Cryptomator. This includes the fact that we now support pCloud, S3, and Vault Format 8. Thanks again Manuel (mjenny on GitHub) for contributing support for pCloud and S3. Also, Cryptomator can now be installed and updated via F-Droid. Vaults in Google Drive can now be used via shortcuts in locations outside of “My Drive”. This works in “Shared with Me”, “My Computer”, and “My Drive” for example. With OneDrive, it is possible to use multiple accounts at the same time. We will make this feature available for Dropbox and Google Drive in the future. In addition, a “real” auto photo upload is available in the Android version, meaning new pictures and videos are now uploaded not only after unlocking the vault, but directly when it is unlocked.
In the coming months, we will switch the Android app to a freemium model, as we did with iOS, and continue to work on the long-awaited document provider.
Desktop Version
With version 1.6.0 announced in the last roadmap, we introduced Vault Format 8 for our Desktop version. You can read more about it here. For better usability, we have introduced error codes and a knowledge base of those, where you can look up solutions for the issue you’ve encountered. We also introduced an auto-lock feature that automatically locks the vaults after a self-defined inactivity time as well as a plugin API. The first plugin for Cryptomator is the KeePassXC plugin via an open-source contribution by Ralph (purejava on GitHub). Furthermore, we improved our build systems so that applications/installers for all operating systems are automatically built and signed (instead of manually).
Two years ago, one might remember that we announced to focus our efforts on Flatpak distribution. However, that didn’t go as planned and progress on it came to a halt… until recently. Our regular open-source contributor Ralph (purejava on GitHub) once again came to our rescue. And we actually did it! Cryptomator is now available on Flathub as a Flatpak app. Again, huge thanks to Ralph for his amazing contribution!
For the Desktop version of Cryptomator, we have some major topics coming up in the near future. On the one hand, we are working on a major FUSE refactoring. Among other things, this is necessary to be able to offer ARM64 support on Windows and Linux as well. On Apple Silicon Macs, we have already supported this for a few releases. On the other hand, we want to address the open issues related to extended attributes. More precisely, we are talking about additional file attributes that enable tagging and fix compatibility issues. Of course, these attributes will be encrypted just like the filename.
If you read this far, we’d like to share a secret with you. We are currently working on Cryptomator Hub. That’s it for now but you’ll definitely hear more about it this year.
Vulnerability in iOS Version 2.0.0–2.0.3 (Please update to 2.0.4)
We always claimed that if there once were a security issue with Cryptomator, we’d be unable to hide it. Now it happened: A user reported an issue in our iOS app that we consider severe.
While such issues can happen in any type of project (as recently demonstrated by infamous bugs in log4j and Exchange), users of open-source software can at least rely on known vulnerabilities not being kept secret for marketing purposes.
In this spirit, we want to share with you all the details of this vulnerability.
What happened?
When decrypting files for the iOS Files app, the cleartext file needs to be physically stored on the file system and a path leading to this file is handed over to the Files app.
If iCloud Backup is enabled on this device, the cleartext file is included in the backup, effectively leaking it to Apple.
What files are affected?
Only files that you actually opened from within the Files app have been decrypted. All remaining vault contents are unaffected.
Furthermore, the device needs to have made an iCloud Backup while a vulnerable version has been in use (2.0.0 released 2021-12-21, fixed in 2.0.4 released 2021-12-26).
If iCloud Backup is disabled, no decrypted files left your device.
Can leaked files be deleted from existing backups?
Yes, the vaults themselves are still fully protected, regardless of which cloud storage is being used.
Why is there decrypted data in the first place?
At some point, you need to have cleartext data, otherwise you can’t work with them. Cryptomator is fully integrated into the Files app, which means that it is bound to and limited by the File Provider Extension API. It requires to have readable (cleartext) data readily available. Keep in mind that Cryptomator’s target is to ensure privacy in the cloud and not on the device itself.
Are there any other plans regarding the local cache?
We are currently investigating if we can shorten the lifetime of decrypted data. As mentioned before, mechanisms that affect the File Provider Extension are out of our hands. But for example, clearing the cache after the vault has been locked in combination with auto-lock can certainly be helpful if you’d like to tighten the longevity of decrypted data.
How does the development team make sure to avoid issues?
While claiming to write bug-free software would be a blatant lie, we can promise to do our best to avoid such vulnerabilities.
But all the best practices, automated code analysis, highest test coverage and consulting external experts doesn’t help to rule out all possibilities, especially when caused by interaction with a third-party tool.
The rewritten iOS app has been tested by more than 2,300 beta testers over a period of half a year. After all, it was just very bad luck that this issue has not been discovered during this beta.
Cryptomator 2.0 for iOS Release
We are happy to announce that Cryptomator 2.0 for iOS is now available in the App Store! 🎉 We’d like to express our gratitude to our over 2,300 TestFlight users for testing the app over the last 6 months. ❤️
Last year in April, we started to rebuild our iOS app from scratch. That’s why we decided to develop Cryptomator 2.0 in Swift. This will make it easier for us to maintain the app in the future.
Of course, the new app also comes with some new features. With Cryptomator 2.0, you get an app that is completely integrated into Apple’s own Files app. This means that your vaults are directly accessible from there. For example, you can now save and edit a Word document directly in an encrypted vault via the Files app. In addition, features like thumbnails, grid view, swiping through images, and drag & drop are possible with the new app.
Transparency is also very important to us with Cryptomator 2.0. Therefore, the entire Cryptomator family, including the new app, remains fully open source. You can check out the repository on GitHub here.
But we didn’t stop there. For the first time, the new app is available as a “freemium” app. This means that in the free version, you can access your vaults in “read-only” mode. If you only need quick access to your vaults on the go, which were created with the Desktop application, then this is the perfect “companion” app. If you don’t want to miss out on write access to your vaults, you can unlock the full version via a one-time purchase for $11.99 after a 30-day trial.
As promised, users of our old Cryptomator app can switch to the new app for free. We have tried to make the upgrade as easy as possible for you. All you have to do is make sure that the previous app is up to date when you start the new app so that you can select the upgrade option. To make the transition easier for you, the previous app will be available in the App Store for a short transition period.
At this point, we would like to thank you once again for your support, without which the project would not have been possible. 😊
We are already looking forward to your feedback! 🤖
Cryptomator 2.0 for iOS: Open Source and Beta Release
Finally, the time has come! 🎉 The brand new iOS app of Cryptomator can now be tried out in a beta version via TestFlight and the project is now, as previously announced, fully open-source! This means that the entire Cryptomator family is now open-source, consisting of the Desktop, Android, and iOS versions.
The new Cryptomator app with full integration into the Files app of iOS fulfills one of the biggest feature requests. For example, it is now possible to save encrypted files directly into a Cryptomator vault within Word. On iPad, drag & drop is possible with the new app. In general, all features of the Files app are automatically supported by Cryptomator.
Development on the new iOS app started just over a year ago and was rewritten from scratch in the Swift programming language. We are now using the latest tools to develop the app and can therefore support new features of iOS faster. This makes the project more future-proof and easier to maintain. Half a year ago, we were able to open-source the Android app and have released numerous updates with great contributions from the community since then. We couldn’t wait to release the source code of the new iOS app as well. Through open-source, the new app is now accessible to all interested developers and the whole community, as we are used to from our other projects.
We are looking forward to your feedback and contributions and are very grateful to you and the whole community that made this step possible. To support the ongoing open-source development of Cryptomator, consider donating or sponsoring. ❤️
Cryptomator Roadmap Early 2021
Development on Cryptomator 1.5.x is coming to an end and we are now working on the next major version 1.6.x. Read more about it in this roadmap!
State of the Desktop App
The update to version 1.6.0 is just around the corner! The release will mainly contain some invisible changes that will allow us to add new features in a timely manner. One of the main points here is to implement a new vault format (Vault Format 8). It makes the integration of other authentication methods in the future possible, for example to enable 2FA.
Another feature is the integration of a sanitizer. Until now, a separate program was needed to check the state of your vault and to execute cleanup and restore commands. In the future, this will be possible directly in the Cryptomator user interface.
In addition, there is now a prototype for the distribution of Cryptomator as a Microsoft Software Installation (.msi), but the implementation still has alpha character. Furthermore, we have updated Cryptomator to JDK 16 with the latest version 1.5.14, which brings some upstream fixes. Unfortunately, we could not make any progress with regard to Flatpak.
State of the Android App
As you might have noticed in our blog, we finally published the source code of the app! Apart from that, vault format 8 is also a big topic in our development here.
Since the update to version 1.5.14 (currently still in a beta version), pCloud is natively supported by Cryptomator. Many thanks to Manu for his open source contribution! Another small change is that since the update 1.5.13, it is possible to sort the vault list and thus get a better overview of the vaults.
But that’s not all we have planned for the Android app! We are happy to release Cryptomator on F-Droid soon. Also, we hope to be able to include more clouds soon and enable access to content of the vault via third-party apps with a “document provider”.
State of the iOS App
With the introduction of vault format 8, the “old” iOS app will probably get its last major update to version 1.6.0.
Meanwhile, work on the “new” iOS app continues. As announced in the last roadmap, the iOS app will be fully integrated into the Files app. We are already very far along. Nevertheless, we still have some work to do, as we want to offer some features like dark mode or support for multiple accounts from the same cloud provider right from the start.
We can’t promise you an exact release date yet, but we hope we will release a first beta version via TestFlight in the summer.
Cryptomator Roadmap Late 2020
We recently released Cryptomator 1.5.10 for Windows, macOS, and Linux with many new features and bugfixes. Well, actually the changes were in 1.5.9 but we followed it up with a hotfix release. 😁 With the (crazy) year nearing its end, we’d like to give you some insight to our roadmap across all platforms for the upcoming months!
State of the Desktop App
With the redesign and full rewrite of the UI in 1.5.0, we established a good foundation for adding further features. There was one former feature that didn’t make the cut though, which is now back with the latest version: Vault Statistics. 🎉
We didn’t stop there! Vault passwords can now also be stored in KWallet on Linux. Huge thanks to Ralph Plawetzki (purejava on GitHub) for his contribution! And last but not least, it is now possible to mount the vault via FUSE on Windows. This is still a beta feature! In order to try it, WinFSP needs to be installed. We’d love to hear your feedback on this!
On the distribution front, we didn’t quite meet our expectations. So far, we’ve been struggling with Flatpak as we just can’t convince its sandbox to properly support FUSE drives. But we’re not giving up on this!
Behind the UI, we introduced the integrations-api alongside implementations for each OS. It’s a new way for Cryptomator to include native (also OS-specific) functionalities. Now easier than ever, you can implement native functions. So grab your keyboard and start hacking! 😁 With this change, we archived the old native-functions repository. 👋
What’s next? Our plan is to move on to 1.6.x. First of all, we want to integrate Sanitizer, so you can check your vault health and run cleanup and recovery tasks right within the Cryptomator UI. Furthermore, by decoupling the key derivation from the vault encryption, we plan to give you more options for authentication, including third-party password storage, 2FA, and multi-user access using individual passwords.
Looking forward, we have some exciting news about our Android app! The project is in the perfect situation to fulfill the two biggest wishes of the community:
Open Source: Publishing the source code of the app.
Document Provider: Accessing the content of the vault using third-party apps.
You heard that right, we are going to open-source Cryptomator for Android! The fact that the app is open-core had its legitimate reasons but we are now fully confident that we can open-source the app without compromises. We are working hard to publish the complete source code within a few weeks.
After that, the highly anticipated Document Provider feature will be on our roadmap.
State of the iOS App
What’s up with Cryptomator for iOS? For the last 6-7 months, we have been hard at work on a completely new app written in Swift. Our first efforts can already be seen in our new open-source libraries for Swift: cryptolib-swift and cloud-access-swift.
What will be so special about the rewrite? Cryptomator will be fully integrated into the Files app. This comes with many benefits like thumbnails, support for third-party apps that can edit files directly inside the vault, and many more! But that also means, there won’t be a “custom” file browser inside the app anymore. Integration into the Files app is one of the most requested features of the community.
What about open source? We won’t open-source the current app anymore because we’d like to look forward. The new app is written with open-sourcing it in mind but it will still take some time until we can release anything.
We’ll definitely do extensive testing via TestFlight in the next year. Stay tuned for that!
Cryptomator 1.5.0 Release
Cryptomator has been redesigned and comes with a new dark mode. It is not simply a redesign, it was a full rewrite of the UI. During the rewrite, a whole new code structure was planned which makes it easier to extend the application in the future. One goal of the redesign was to make the onboarding process easier for users who don’t feel too comfortable with encryption software. Usability tests helped designing the workflows and understanding common misconceptions. Besides the redesign, the new vault format 7 increases compatibility with some cloud services and at the same time reduces the complexity for certain I/O operations.
To support the ongoing open-source development of Cryptomator, consider buying a donation key, which unlocks the new dark mode. ❤️ Detailed release notes for the desktop app are available on GitHub.
As you might have noticed, this website is also shining in a completely new design. ✨
Cryptomator for iOS & Android
New updates for iOS and Android have been released as well. To celebrate the release, our mobile apps are 40% off until April 23! 🤖
We would like to take a more regular look at our roadmap to publicly document the past, present, and future developments of Cryptomator. Unlike before, we’re also going to have a look at the roadmaps of our mobile apps.
Desktop
In the desktop area, we are currently pursuing two different branches: On the one hand we are striving for feature completion of 1.4.x, with 1.4.12 already available as a release candidate. It will finally allow Linux users to store their password in the system and include the much desired “Custom Mount Flags” feature.
Save password in system (Linux): For a long time, you could only store your vault’s password in the system under macOS and Windows. Through a community contribution, this is now finally also possible under (some) Linux systems. 😄 The existence of GNOME Keyring or another keychain via Secret Service API is required. Many thanks to Ralph Plawetzki (purejava on GitHub) and Sebastian Wiesendahl (swiesend on GitHub) for the implementation!
Custom Mount Flags: Cryptomator uses default options to mount a drive (both for Dokany and FUSE) that we chose for security or performance reasons. However, this leads to limited functionality in some cases and users who want to set their own options can now change them. Be aware: Use at your own risk!
On the other hand the implementation of 1.5.0 has already started. For 1.5.0, as announced, we want to fully concentrate on the redesign of the user interface and improve the internal processing of Cryptomator, because like many open-source projects it has grown organically over time and therefore needs a good refactoring. 😉
iOS
After the release of Cryptomator 1.4.0 for iOS with built-in cache functionality, which on the one hand avoids repeated downloading of files and on the other hand allows (limited) offline access, the work on Cryptomator 1.5.0 for iOS has started.
The main focus will be the integration into the Files app of iOS. The first step will be the expansion of our Document Provider which is going to be extended by the methods “Open” and “Move”. This will make a direct access to files within a Cryptomator vault from other apps possible without having to copy them back and forth.
Android
Cryptomator 1.4.0 for Android is currently being finalized with the following features, which can already be tested in a beta version:
Automatic photo upload: After activation, all images created on the smartphone will be uploaded the next time the selected vault is unlocked.
Make files writable by third-party apps: Files that are opened can be edited in third-party apps. When you finish the editing process by saving and returning to the Cryptomator app, the changes are transferred to the cloud.
We are considering these features for future versions:
LRU Cache: To save network traffic, certain server responses are cached to avoid repeated downloading, for example of unmodified images from the cloud.
Support for Google Team Drives: Access to vaults located in Google Team Drive should be made possible.
Distribution of the app outside of Google Play: Cryptomator for Android should also be available from alternative sources. We are thinking about setting up a licensing system, through which a license could be purchased directly.
Unlocking with system password: You should be able to use the system password of the smartphone to open vaults. (Similar to unlocking with a fingerprint.)
Access to files via DocumentProvider: Access to a Cryptomator vault inside other apps should be made possible via a DocumentProvider. For example, a file explorer would then be able to access the vault in this way.
Upload of directories (recursive): The download of whole folders already works, the upload including all subfolders is not possible yet.
Cryptomator 1.3.0 Release
We’ve completely rewritten Cryptomator. Its core components are now modularized to CryptoLib, CryptoFS, and WebDAV-NIO-Adapter. A complete list of closed issues is available here.
Improvements
Auto-Unlock!!! 🎉 (#40) We finally implemented the most-wished feature. Still experimental and will be completed by autostart (optionally hidden) in future versions
Dropped SHA-1 signatures in Windows Authenticode code signing
Dropped official Windows Vista support
Dropped official Ubuntu Vivid and Wily support
Technical Details on Windows Mounting
After we have fixed #431, we noticed various issues on Windows. We tried hosting the virtual drive via localhost, 127.0.0.1, and ::1 but every host has its own issue: Sometimes access to the virtual drive was extremely slow, sometimes Windows showed unnecessary security warnings (#529), and sometimes Office didn’t properly work (#512). That’s why the Windows installer for Cryptomator now writes the new host cryptomator-vault (which is mapped to 127.0.0.1) into the hosts file. Weirdly enough, with that new host, all problems seem to be gone. Even though we don’t quite understand why binding an IP has such a big impact, we just hope that we finally found a good solution!
Under-The-Hood Improvements
We’d like to highlight some improvements that we were able to make under-the-hood: Faster build times, high test coverage for our crypto libraries, and more!
This version will be released shortly and might be the last major beta version. We are now in preparations for releasing Cryptomator 1.0.0 for Android. Looking forward to a great first final release!
Cryptomator 1.2.0 Release
Cryptomator 1.2.0 for Windows, Mac, and Linux is out now!
New Features
On Windows and Mac you can now optionally save your password. This is a preparation for auto-unlock (GitHub Issue 40), one of the most wanted features we’re planning for the next minor release. Linux support will follow, as soon as we figured out a standard way to protect saved credentials across most distributions.
New migration screen preventing accidental migration.
Cryptomator for Mac will now appear in Dock + Application Switcher, when not minimized to the menu bar icon.
Fixes and Improvements
Improved speed of directory listing by using a deterministic cleartext size calculation.
Sadly, we had to drop file size obfuscation support. From this version onwards, there is a bijective function for calculating the cleartext size from the ciphertext size and vice versa.
We always strive to offer the best of both, security and usability. But sometimes we need to find a compromise in order to implement all the features, we’re planning for future releases. In the past, we needed to access the first few bytes of a file in order to determine the cleartext file size, which led to O(n) I/O activities with n being the number of files per directories. In this case, we decided in favor of O(1) directory listings, which is especially useful for large directory listings, file size determination via mobile devices, or slow internet connections.
File size obfuscation has never been a cryptographically effective protection against adversaries getting to know the approximate cleartext size. Anything the size of a movie remained the size of a movie and was most likely not mistaken for a text document. Nevertheless, we will miss you. R.I.P.
Cryptomator 1.2.0 for iOS
Added compatibility to vaults created with desktop version 1.2.0
Added file sizes to directory listing (only available for newly-created or migrated vaults)
Added “sort by date” in directory listing
Added filter capability in directory listing
Added favorite folders to file upload
Added sticker pack with Cryptobot for Messages (available for iOS 10)
Improved clean up of temporary files
Fixed upload of large files in iCloud Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive
Fixed access of shared folders in OneDrive
Fixed directory listing that limited the number of files shown in Google Drive and OneDrive
Fixed last modified date in Google Drive
Fixed reauthentication of some cloud storage services
Cryptomator for Android
We are confident that we can inform you about a beta release in the next weeks. Stay tuned and thank you for your patience!
In-Depth: Export Compliance for French iOS App Store
Cyptomator for iOS has finally been approved by the French administration. You can download it now in the French App Store. We’d like to share our experience on how to receive export compliance for the French iOS App Store.
Just to be clear, you also need the U.S. Encryption Registration (ERN) approval from the U.S. Bureau of Industry (BIS). But this has already been covered by many sites, just google for export compliance ern ios app store.
However, there is little information on how to get the French encryption declaration approval from the Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d’information (ANSSI). This information could be useful for fellow developers that are e.g. using third-party libraries for cryptographic operations in their iOS app. I’m not sure if this is also needed for the Google Play Store (or other Android app stores). We’ll see soon enough.
When do you need French approval?
Let’s take a look on how we’ve filled out our export compliance documentation in iTunes Connect, which is needed for apps containing encryption.
ID
Question
Answer
1
Is your app designed to use cryptography or does it contain or incorporate cryptography? (Select Yes even if your app is only utilizing the encryption available in iOS or OS X.)
Yes
2
Does your app qualify for any of the exemptions provided in Category 5, Part 2 of the U.S. Export Administration Regulations?
No
3
Does your app implement one or more encryption algorithms that are proprietary or yet to be accepted as standard by international standard bodies (such as, the IEEE, IETF, ITU, and so on)?
No
4
Does your app implement one or more encryption algorithms instead of, or in addition to, accessing or using the encryption in iOS and OS X?
Yes
5
Is your app going to be available on the French App Store?
Yes
Our answer to question 4 is probably less common among typical apps using encryption. Additionally to Apple’s CommonCrypto, we’re making use of OpenSSL and scrypt, which aren’t bundled with the standard library of iOS. Only then you’re going to be asked question 5 and only then you have to submit a copy of the French encryption declaration approval from the ANSSI.
But the fun stops there. From now on, everything is in French. Yup. That’s right. Everything. Even the responses you receive are in French. And you have to submit your request via mail (yes, not email).
What’s our advice on this? Best case you know someone who can read/write French, but in our case we just used Google Translate extensively. We’ve filled out the approval form in English, because we hoped for common sense that they’re at least able to read our request in English. And it worked!
How long does it take until my request has been processed/approved?
The official statement is:
Declaration requests are processed within one month from receipt of the complete request file and authorisation requests within four months from the same date.
We’ve submitted our declaration request in the beginning of April 2016 and received a first response in the beginning of May. It was just to inform us that they’ve received our request and it’ll take another two months to finish the process. In the end, we’ve received the approval two months after our submission.
I don’t remember exactly how long it took to get the ERN approval, but it was just a matter of days and completely processed online.
Summary
I hope you learned something from our experience and if you’re an app developer struggling with the same issue, you hopefully received some insight in this process. Obviously, this information may change in the future, so do some additional research. 😉
Funny story: In the approval form are checkboxes, which you can enable if you’re sending a CD or USB flash drive with information of your product (like commercial brochure, user manual, technical details). I couldn’t believe what they were asking for, so I didn’t send anything besides the approval form. They kindly sent me an email, if I could provide a commercial or technical brochure for Cryptomator so that they can process my request. So I did that via email and everything was fine. 😄
Cryptomator 1.1 Release
Cryptomator 1.1 for Windows, OS X, and Linux is out now! We’ve added a password strength indicator and sync conflicts are now being detected.
What’s New:
Password Strength Indicator: Based on Dropbox’s zxcvbn. Kudos to Jean-Noël Charon (jncharon on GitHub) for implementing this feature.
Sync Conflict Resolution: When editing a file on multiple devices simultaneously, version conflicts are inevitable. Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. can detect these conflicts and will provide all versions of the affected file. From now on Cryptomator will transparently pass detected conflicts right to the decrypted drive to ensure no version gets lost.
Several small tweaks and fixes.
We’ve also released Cryptomator 1.1 for iOS recently. WebDAV support is finally here! Encrypt your files in cloud storage services like ownCloud, HiDrive, MagentaCLOUD, STACK, blaucloud, and many more.
What’s New:
Added WebDAV support.
Downloads and uploads continue while the app is in the background.
Improved Google Drive integration, using their newest APIs.
Fixed missing fullscreen button when viewing videos on iPad.
Several bug fixes and UI optimizations.
What about Android?
We started implementing a prototype of the Android app and will keep you updated shortly! Stay tuned. 😄
