Cryptomator: The Open Source Project That Fixes the Big Hole in Your Cloud

If you, like me, spent a good chunk of last year watching the Home Office demand that Apple break the laws of physics, mathematics and common sense by bolting a backdoor onto iCloud encryption, then Cryptomator is for you. < /p>

Nothing says "we understand technology" quite like ordering a company to build a door that only the good guys can walk through.

Cryptomator encrypts your files, photos and documents before they leave your machine, using 256-bit AES. The encryption happens client side, then the encrypted files sync to your cloud. Your provider sees folder sizes and gibberish, nothing more. The only way in is your password, because nobody else holds the keys. Not Apple, not Microsoft, and not a man in Marsham Street with a clipboard and a strong opinion about paedophiles.

You create a vault, which is essentially a folder inside your cloud storage. I run two: one in iCloud, one in OneDrive, each with a different password. Two copies of my data, two separate locks, and a pleasing sense that somebody somewhere is mildly inconvenienced.

With auto-sync on, the vault mounts as a normal drive in macOS. You drag things into it, you drag things out of it, and everything gets encrypted on the way. There is no ceremony, no faff, no twelve-step ritual involving a terminal window and a prayer.

Here is the part that still rankles. By strong-arming Apple into pulling Advanced Data Protection in the UK, the Home Office effectively removed a straightforward route to GDPR and NIS2 compliance for small businesses. So the choice on offer was: keep customer data unencrypted in the cloud, or risk a fine from a different arm of the same state. Meanwhile your personal documents and family photos sit there, readable by anyone who gets far enough in. Cryptomator quietly patches the hole the government insisted on making.

It also says something that the best answer came out of the EU, built in the open, free, and audited by people who do not need to be compelled by legislation to do the right thing. Sometimes the fix for bad policy is just better software.