How to configure EncFS on OSX 10.10 (Yosemite)

With EncFS it’s possible to keep our data in almost any cloud (Dropbox, OneDrive, etc…), having a good level of privacy and security. Infact EncFS encrypt and decrypt our data automatically. It’s available for Linux as well and using a commercial solution (that is currently unsupported) even on Windows.

Installing EncFS

EncFS can be installed from brew. If you don’t have brew package manager installed on OSX you can install it using this command:

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ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

After brew, you need to install OSXFuse from this website http://osxfuse.github.io

Finally you can install encfs using this command:

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brew install homebrew/fuse/encfs

Configuring the encrypted folder

Now that EncFS is installed, you can either mount an existing EncFS volume or create a new one. In both cases the command is the same:

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encfs ~/Dropbox/Private ~/Private

If you are mounting an existing encrypted volume, you will be prompted for the password. If you are creating a new encrypted volume you will be asked some questions about EncFS parameters.

Note: if it’s important for you to keep compatibility with BoxCryptor Classic (in case you want to use the same volume under Windows), please refer to this other article I wrote: https://www.andreagrandi.it/2014/09/12/create-an-encfs-volume-compatible-with-boxcryptor-classic/

Mount the encrypted volume on startup

First of all you need to save the volume’s password inside the OSX keychain. Open the app Keychain Access and create a new entry with name encfs and account value encfs, then write your password and click Add:

$encfs\_keychain\_access$ { width=60% }

Once the password is saved, open a text editor and paste this script and save it as encfs_mount.sh inside your $HOME folder:

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#!/bin/bash
# Secure EncFS Dropbox mounter by Daniel Widerin <[email protected]>

SOURCE=~/Dropbox/Private
TARGET=~/Private
VOLUME_TITLE=Private
KEYCHAIN_PASSWORD='encfs'
ENCFS=/usr/local/bin/encfs

mount | grep $TARGET >/dev/null
[[ "$?" -eq "0" ]] && /usr/sbin/diskutil unmount $TARGET

if [ ! -d $TARGET ]; then
echo "Create new mountpoint $TARGET"
mkdir $TARGET
chmod 0700 $TARGET
fi

$ENCFS $SOURCE $TARGET --extpass="security 2>&1 >/dev/null find-generic-password -gl '$KEYCHAIN_PASSWORD' |grep password|cut -d \\\" -f 2" -ovolname=$VOLUME_TITLE

Make it executable:

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chmod +x ~/encfs_mount.sh

Open AppleScript editor and paste this text inside and save as an app in the $HOME folder:

apple script { width=60% }

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do shell script "$HOME/encfs_mount.sh"

Finally, open “System Preferences” -> “Users & Groups” and add the previously saved application.

system preferences { width=60% }

Final notes

At this point encfs is configured to be mounted at startup and to save the encrypted files inside Dropbox. Please note: do not save anything directly on ~/Dropbox/Private, only read and save your files from ~/Private

Installing EncFS

Configuring the encrypted folder

Mount the encrypted volume on startup

Final notes

References