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qqurioustiger8945

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 9, 2017
115
2
Hey everyone,

I've been using an external HD filled with all of my documents/files as my standard HD which I connect to whatever computer I might have access to at a time and browse/use it this way.

For documents such as credit cards and other accounts I've made a .txt file in a password protected .dmg and up until now it worked fine and served me just as I needed since I'm only surrounded by Macs in my house.

However, I am soon going to be using other computers running Windows as well from now on, so I was wondering what is the alternative to .dmg so I can store and password protect my sensitive documents in it and still be able to use it (read & write) on both Mac and Windows.

Thank you in-advance. :)


Other info in-case it matters:

I'm not very paranoid about safety from hacking. It's having my HD fall into the wrong hands (possibly getting mugged?) what I'm afraid of, and have a random stranger read my sensitive data.

I'm open to all kinds of alternatives, besides a cloud service, as I don't always have internet access.
 

qqurioustiger8945

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 9, 2017
115
2
Try Vera crypt, works fine for me.
https://www.veracrypt.fr/en/Home.html

Thank you for your advice. :)

I just checked their website. From what I understand, what that is, is that I encrypt my files using VeraCrypt on any operating system, and then whatever computer I find myself using at a time, I just download the compatible (to its operating system) VeraCrypt software and decrypt it in order to use it.

Was that correct or did I misinterpret something?
 

Thom75

macrumors member
Oct 23, 2014
37
7
Aylesbury, UK
Thank you for your advice. :)

I just checked their website. From what I understand, what that is, is that I encrypt my files using VeraCrypt on any operating system, and then whatever computer I find myself using at a time, I just download the compatible (to its operating system) VeraCrypt software and decrypt it in order to use it.

Was that correct or did I misinterpret something?

This is more like virtual disk, so need be formated in the way you can use it on any computer.
Let say windows, linux and osx can write on exFat or Fat32. *Fat* is not very safe but universal.
You can format it as NTFS but you will need NTFS-3G on osx.

Btw. On windows you can use portable version. Not sure about osx.

Good luck.
Thom
 

qqurioustiger8945

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 9, 2017
115
2
This is more like virtual disk, so need be formated in the way you can use it on any computer.
Let say windows, linux and osx can write on exFat or Fat32. *Fat* is not very safe but universal.
You can format it as NTFS but you will need NTFS-3G on osx.

Btw. On windows you can use portable version. Not sure about osx.

Good luck.
Thom

Thank you, I'll look into that.
 
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