Dropbox: Get Read / Write EncFS Support On Android Using Cryptonite

Dropbox is very popular - and for a good reason - it's fast, you get free storage space which can easily be increased, there are many additional tools that make use of Dropbox and so on, but unfortunately it doesn't encrypt the data on your computer. This is why, a while back I was suggesting to encrypt private Dropbox data using EncFS.

But what if you want to access an encrypted folder from an Android device? You can use BoxCryptor, but it has some limitations: the free version has read-only access so you can't upload / modify files, only the first two encrypted folder levels are accessible (deeper folders can't be accessed) and has limited EncFS support (you have to use custom EncFS settings to be able to use it).

Well, a new Android application has been released recently, solving all these issues: Cryptonite EncFS.

Cryptonite EncFS is still in alpha, but it can already read / write on existing Dropbox EncFS volumes (the upload feature is experimental, but it worked just fine in my test) and has full EncFS support, so there's no need for special EncFS configuration. Oh, and it's free software.

Further more, on rooted phones that support FUSE, like CyanogenMod, Cryptonite can also mount EncFS volumes (root is not required for using Cryptonite EncFS with Dropbox).

The application is very easy to use: you click a button to link your Dropbox account and then you can decrypt and browse EncFS folders in your Dropbox. Cryptonite then lets you export or directly open the encrypted files you select and you can also upload files to your Dropbox EncFS folder(s):