EncryptPad: Encrypted Text Editor For Your Secrets
EncryptPad is a simple, free and open source text editor that encrypts saved text files and allows protecting them with passwords, key files, or both. It's available on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
The application comes with a GUI as well as a command line interface, and it also offers a tool for encrypting and decrypting binary files.
The secure text editor and file encryption tool is great for cases in which you want to prevent others from accessing sensitive information, be it some text (encrypt notes, credit card information, login credentials, a diary, or anything else you may want to keep secret and secure) or a video, photo, archive or other binary files, which is stored locally, placed on some unprotected media like an USB stick, or sent online, as an email attachment for example. Encryptpad can also serve as an alternative to a password manager.
Related: Bitwarden: The Secure, Open Source Password Manager You're Looking For
EncryptPad looks like a regular text editor with options for creating files or opening existing files, a search button, as well as options for setting the preferred font and size, tab width, and so on. But on top of this, the application includes encryption options, like:
The application doesn't offer any advanced text editing tools, but that's because advanced text editing is not its purpose. EncryptPad is more or less designed to be a secure / encrypted Microsoft Notepad alternative that runs on multiple platforms. Or, to put it differently, it's designed to be easy to use and secure, without overcomplicating things.
Main EncryptPad encrypted text editor features:
For Linux you'll find an AppImage binary, or you can check out this page about installing EncryptPad (includes Arch Linux AUR and Ubuntu / Linux Mint PPA packages).
Related: How To Make A PGP Key On Linux Using A GUI (And Publish It)
The application comes with a GUI as well as a command line interface, and it also offers a tool for encrypting and decrypting binary files.
The secure text editor and file encryption tool is great for cases in which you want to prevent others from accessing sensitive information, be it some text (encrypt notes, credit card information, login credentials, a diary, or anything else you may want to keep secret and secure) or a video, photo, archive or other binary files, which is stored locally, placed on some unprotected media like an USB stick, or sent online, as an email attachment for example. Encryptpad can also serve as an alternative to a password manager.
Related: Bitwarden: The Secure, Open Source Password Manager You're Looking For
EncryptPad looks like a regular text editor with options for creating files or opening existing files, a search button, as well as options for setting the preferred font and size, tab width, and so on. But on top of this, the application includes encryption options, like:
- choose between EPD or GPG for the file format
- encryption parameters (algorithm, hash, iterations, salt and compression)
- options to generate, set or remove the encryption key
- from the File menu you can open the file encryption tool which can be used to encrypt binary files
The application doesn't offer any advanced text editing tools, but that's because advanced text editing is not its purpose. EncryptPad is more or less designed to be a secure / encrypted Microsoft Notepad alternative that runs on multiple platforms. Or, to put it differently, it's designed to be easy to use and secure, without overcomplicating things.
Main EncryptPad encrypted text editor features:
- Symmetric encryption
- Passphrase and / or key file protection
- Random key file generator and customizable passphrase generator
- Path to a key file can be stored in an encrypted file. If enabled, you do not need to specify the key file every time you open files.
- Includes a tool for encrypting binary files (images, videos, archives, etc.)
- Read only mode to prevent accidental file modification
- UTF8 text encoding
- Windows/Unix configurable line endings
- File format compatible with OpenPGP
- Iterated and salted S2K
- Passphrases are not kept in the memory for reuse, only S2K results
- Cipher algorithms: CAST5, TripleDES, AES128, AES256
- Hash algorithms: SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-512
- Integrity protection: SHA-1
- Compression: ZLIB, ZIP
- Large multi-gigabyte files are supported
Download EncryptPad
For Linux you'll find an AppImage binary, or you can check out this page about installing EncryptPad (includes Arch Linux AUR and Ubuntu / Linux Mint PPA packages).
Related: How To Make A PGP Key On Linux Using A GUI (And Publish It)
