My Wish For 2023 (prolly Won't Happen)

When it comes to docs, spreadsheets and PDF's... there are plenty of Android and Windows 'office type' apps that can encrypt/decrypt and work with those files. No need to locate and "drop in" data files into separate encryptor apps. Easy. But the rest (like image files), you still pretty much need separate encryptors (7-zip, etc.) - which is just not as convenient. In zip's case, one has to unzip the files to somewhere... and after finishing with them, remember to secure delete those unencrypted files!

Wish somebody could enhance .jpg or .png or .raw formats to accept 'native' encryption/decryption without any content degradation. Or come up with a decent image viewer/editor that can do similar.

Thus far, the app that comes closest is a near-unknown Win app called Cpix - but it encrypts images into its own proprietary format that can't be opened by any other app - Win or Android. And Cpix has no Android / Apple counterpart. So pretty useless. Surely people view their photos both on their computers and on their phones too?

Another Win image app -- Faststone MaxView -- can decrypt zip files from within its own GUI -- and secure delete those unencrypted files automatically after you're done. This at least takes away most of the 'pain' in using zip files; but again, it's Win only and there's no phone counterpart.

Why aren't there multiple image viewer/editor apps that can do encryption/decryption? Surely there's as great a demand for keeping photos private as there is for spreadsheets? How do y'all handle images/photos you wish to keep private?

 

Why not use a compression program that has encryption built in and bung your images into that? See Download Compression (ZIP, RAR) Tools for Windows - MajorGeeks - so you can use zipped encrypted folders in Windows Explorer.

Or are you looking for disk level encryption rather folder or file based encryption?

 

Actually, I do use zip, but it's inconvenient. Imagine if we also had to unzip an office document or spreadsheet every time we need to work on it or even just to view it. And after we are done, we have to either rezip/reencrypt (if saving changes) - or remember to secure delete the unzipped file (if no changes to be saved).

 

Put your private photos on a flash drive. And then view them on your computer. Everyday...

 

But what if I wish to access my private files (including photos) when away from home? Carry a flash drive that's easily lost or stolen?

My files are in my hard drive and synced to external drive, cloud, and phone. I prefer file-level encryption, so the files I want to keep private are already encrypted in device... before they get copied/uploaded. Be it laptop or phone, it's the same level of ease working with docs and spreadsheets. But not with photos. And zip (as explained above) is cumbersome to me.

I know we are not there yet - an image format that can be encrypted/decrypted within app, just like .xlsx or .docx. Actually, in my post above, there is already such a format (Epix's .ejpg) - but it's proprietary, and there's only one proprietary Win image viewer and no Android counterpart. Sigh...