tbf, the software has been updated regularly. But it was forked from TrueCrypt back in 2013, and the interface probably doesn't look much different to how it did then. (I agree with you, just saying that it's not dead software...)
I'm using Windows 10 Home, and because of that, I can't use the Bitlocker function. Luckily, this software exists, and it's free, open-source, and works on multiple platforms, what more can I ask for? Thank you so much sir for the clear and detailed explanation, really helped me a lot.
Chris Thank you for another important video. With the great number of USB drives around, it is great to see how we can encrypt the data. A big thing over here in the US would be medical record keeping. I would like to carry my medical records at all time but I worry about the security issues. Your video is the perfect solution. Thank you, sir! Rich
+MrMoonpie001 I think more and more people are starting to worry about losing the vast quantity of data they can now easily carry in their pocket -- but which could too easily be lost and fall into unwanted hands.
+ExplainingComputers Chris, would you consider doing a video on Flash memory vs SSD and or other similar storage? I see a lot of conflicting information and I do not really have a good, yet not real complicated explanation of the two if possible. As of late the capacity of Flash drives seems to be increasing, I really didn't expect to see that in the future. I thought the SSD would make Flash (or other nonmechanical storage) obsolete, but yet both are similar as you know Rich
+MrMoonpie001 SSDs are based on flash memory. :) (USB) flash drives tend to have slower controllers (as least in most USB drives), and often slower cells. But the underlying tech is the same. I have a video on SSDs and flash memory care and optimization in production (ie I have shot half of it, but still have some animation to do!). It will appear I think in March sometime.
+ExplainingComputers Thank you, Chris, for your response. Question, in home appliances, are they using flash memory? I know things that don't allow for programming in other words, "Firmware upgradable only"must be using some kind of memory? Thank you! Rich
+MrMoonpie001 Yes, many devices have some form of non-volatile RAM to store often small quantities of data -- eg a TV stores its channels. Various technologies have been used -- including EPROM, EEPROM and more modern flash memory. You know, there is a video here! :)
Thanks for the clear explanation. I am sure the VeraCrypt USB will be very secure but though you are doing a really good job in explaining this - bravo! - it's already getting complicated after just a few minutes, and you are using your insights to help you to get it to set up and work. I really do appreciate it is free and that's great. Well done and 'thank you' to all who helped to make that possible. However that should not mean you need to be expert (or at least very experienced with tech) to set it up. Compare the interface here to off-the-shelf, commercially-available encryption. That should be the benchmark. For example you are making educated guesses/choices on options in the vid and that's poor from the programmers. By all means have those choices, but as OPTIONS. The basic setup should be simple, and straightforward. My guess is most people just want an easy-to-implement but very secure container to drag their files into. Click to open, type password, do your thing, close/dismount, eject the USB stick. Quite lot of wanabee users will be lost by the wayside even with you to guide them. They'll get error popups, not know how to correct them... So what other options are there? For text only go with Lock Note fellow non-techies! Tiny, portable, ideal for passwords or repoerts and so on plus it's AES 256. If you can use Notepad or Word you can set up Lock Note. For containers, where you might want to protect more complicated files? Look at LaCie. I have a 128GB Sandisk Ultra Fit which came with a very user friendly AES 128 vault built in (from 'Encrypt Stick', I think), but there are some questions as to how secure that format will be in the future so I decided to try open source AES 256. It seems to come down to Veracrypt and LaCie. For, me it's LaCie. LaCie is portable, sets sets up quickly and unlike VeraCrypt appears *much* more user friendly. You don't need a lot of technical knowledge to get it to work well: basically download it, selected a volume, set it up on your memory stick, and click to open it. Drag your files in, then dismount, and hey presto: you are ready to eject the drive. Any reasons why it isn't a better option, these points considered? Many thanks!
VeraCrypt is not difficult to use once you have set things up, and offers a lot more choice than the LaCie software -- eg allowing encryption of containers (that can be moved between drives and backed up) as well as volume. VeraCrypt is also supported on Linux. So it depends what you want to do. If your needs are Windows or Mac only volume encryption, LaCie may indeed be easier.
You were kind enough to reply, so I revisited this with your video, step by step. Still ran into practical problems and things you glide over are not where they needed to be on my system (Acer Swift SSD with Windows 10), so have to disagree with you on this being a soloution. I am sure sticking at it I could resolve it, but there we hit on the real issue: Veracrypt is certainly not for the average, or even above average, computer user. Unless you have the time and interest in figuring out the idiocincracies of an IT system move on. Go with LaCie. Most users want something which is effectively an app. You set it up, and it secures the file with a long password. The failure of any expert is usually in their expert knowledge. . Most experts fail in communication. Have you seen the forums where people ask for help with an issue with Windows and some guy comes on and urges them to get rid of it and put on Linux, which is very complicated to use compared to the flawed, but more popular operating system?! Nuts. Most students are not good at maths. Most maths teachers were very good indeed at maths which is why they pursued that career. That creates a problem for the average student when Mr Smith takes a leap with a sample problem, and the same applies across other subject areas. You are an excellent communicator, but that's very rare with those who work with tech. Most programmers' brains work at a high level on algebra problems and they are simply unable to understand that others - most of the rst od us - who don't have that facility. I have been using a PC for about 25 years and would like to think I am not slow witted. But, mounting, unmounting, reformatting drives, moving containers from one to another? For a basic setup?! Overkill. I want to SECURE MY ENTIRE DRIVE WITH A 256 AES password. Not become a weekend expert in virtual drive management. How many motorists need to know about how motion sensors work or infrared signals transfer - or want to spend the time finding out - in order for the secure locking to engage on the family car? Look at USB Secure, or for open source even Locknote. That is the benchmark for this sort of program. What Veracrypt's volunteers have succeeded in doing is creating free encyption for other tech experts (or people willing to go up the path to learning to become one). The reformatting I will concede as that is a space issue. And I would accept the aforementioned features as a bonus if they were easy to achieve. But they are not. In my opinion for Veracrypt (and any other system), if you want to be truly successful your setup should be auotmated with a popup, box ticks and 'Next'. By all means allow what you showed, but that should not be standard. Leave it for expert users who like to fiddle with the parameters. Add a manual set up which allows for tweaking. I will stick with LaCie and would advise other users to do the same. Okay you have your 50GB limits for containers but that's not insurmountable (no pun intended). You have to unmount LaCie but you get a little icon for that in your tray. No naming drives and moving them to other folders which will, I guarantee you, confuse a lot of users. Few consumers want that, or need it. As one of your watchers here notes most will just want to encrypt the entire memory stick and password protect it, which would be a lot easier than all of this. Please don't take this as a criticism of your video. It's really good. But I could not get Veracrypt working even with your help and I set up LaCie by myself with a few clicks. Best wishes to you in your work, sir.
Another brilliant and useful video found just when I needed it. I thought VeraCrypt might have been the answer to my encryption requirements, but it's not what I'm after. Much easier to watch a video that I knew would explain everything I needed to know on the subject. Every bit as informative as your videos 5 years later Christopher!
For anybody interested, I have found a couple of uses for VeraCrypt for my situation that pretty much emulate the confiuration that Christopher has demonstrated. I have a time saving suggestion for those planning to use it on USB drives. I personally have quite a few 32GB Toshiba pen drives and this seems a nice size for a container, so I formatted the drive and copied the necessary VeraCrypt software to a subdirectory. Using the software I followed the steps outlined by Christopher to create a VeraCrypt container for the remainder of the disk to the nearest GB (I think it was about 28GB). This takes a lifetime to format and if I had thought about it I should have just created the same size container on my SSD or even HDD instead as the formatting would have been MUCH faster! But now that it's done I have copied that blank container to my HDD so that I never have to do it again (so long as I stick with the same password) and I can just drop it onto any other 32GB+ USB stick (or other drive) and it's ready, no formatting and plenty of space for the VeraCrypt code. In addition, I used the command line help to write a batch file each for "Mount" and "Dismount" functions. These execute commands in my "\VeraCrypt" sub-directory, but reside in the root directory where the container is found. I also avoided any reference to drive letters as there is no guarentee that the same letter will be available on any system that you might want to use the USB. I wanted some fancy icons on my BAT files, but apparently you can't, so I created shortcuts referencing them so I could on the shortcuts (make sure that any unneeded drive letters are removed from the shortcuts too). Lastly, I used the file properties to hide the VeraCrypt directory, the container and the BAT files, so all that was visible when looking at the drive was just the now snazzy Mount and Dismount shortcuts. NB: The BAT files DO NOT contain the password cos that would kind of defeat the object of the encryption, but they prompt the user for it, mount the encrypted volume and start the background process that will look after your drive (even if you forget to dismount the volume before shutting the system down like I often do). VeraCrypt does seem an ideal solution for external drives, but Windows file encryption works better for me on the internal drives. Despite having Windows 10 Pro, Bitlocker did not appear to be the answer to any of my encryption needs. My only issue as a consequence is that I currently have to manually unencrypt any files I transfer to my VeraCrypt volumes in case I want to access them on another machine (since they become double encytpted, retaining the Windows file encryption inside the encrypted VeraCrypt container). I'm sure that I'll find a solution when I look, but if anybody has a suggestion of decrypting as part of the transfer then please feel free to comment (thanks in advance). I hope this might help someone else find a use for VeraCrypt.abl
@@ExplainingComputers good to hear that, me too. Recently I was watching their crypto donations and it's poor. I wish they don't end, this kind of code is not for any dev.
It’s so hard to find security companies that offer encryption but I was able to find one - Armorax. These guys offer panels that are hybrid (cellular + wifi) and encrypted and their monitoring is not what I thought it would be with encryption, it’s actually pretty cheap!
Best tutorial Ive found on using verycrypt! Also, thanks for including the part about the disk formats (FAT32). It would have helped those who did not know about it :)
@@DynamicEmpireInc By default, USB flash drives use FAT32 for a file system, It's good and all. But the limitation of it is you can't have files larger than 4GB. for that your drive must be formatted for NTFS or exFAT.
I am using GnuPG that seems to do the same thing than VeraCrypt. This is very useful to store safely my 504 passwords in an encrypted file that is itself protected with a password.
idk show secure 7z file system is but for secure files I just store it in an uncompressed zip file. Since pretty much all computers have some sort of archive manager these days I can easily & quickly open it. I know there is the venerability where the files are stores in the temp folder while in use but the likely hood of this leading to a leak is super small so for normal circumstances using a 7z seems pretty safe to me. Also, the 7z file system allows you to hide folder & document names which was one of the inherent flaws of zip encryption before. Let me know if I've overlooked anything here.
Running VeraCrypt from the USB disk itself is kind of a security risk as someone could borrow the drive and replace veracrypt.exe with a modified version while you're not looking. Better to just download it on every system if at all possible.
True, I guess it depends on how paranoid you are and if you always keep the USB drive on your possession and in your sight. This is a convenience I agree. The presence alone of VeraCrypt on the drive gives a baddie the knowledge that there is juicy sensitive data on there and could harm you trying to get you to reveal it. I have been playing around with hidden volume and that works nicely for ultra paranoid people or very sensitive data. I tend to keep file based encrypted files though quite small and named something normal to make them less obvious.
My background was 25 years as an academic teaching computing-related courses in the University of Nottingham, and before that writing bits and pieces for computing magazines. I've also written 12 books, some entirely on computing, some related to some extent. I now work freelance as a futurist helping companies to understand new technologies, in particular including 3D printing, other digital fabriation methods and AI. I have done a lot of digital editing work (starting well before it was the norm!), and CG animation (I also worked freelance as a cartoon animator for the BBC in a previous life).
That is really interesting, thanks for sharing! Do you have any experience with cyber security? it's a field I'm very interested in. Are there any of your videos that cross over into that area? thanks again.
Hm... Sooooo I was testing this, and when yanked the usb drive to see what would happen then plug it back in. I had to repair the drive and the data I put on there was erased but the data I deleted before that came back? This is kinda scary, so it's IMPORTANT to unmount the drive
Now I know bitlocker is proprietary and not open-source, but I'm amazed at how convenient it is compared to other options. I just keep two partitions of my nvme ssd enclosure - unencrypted exfat and bitlocker-encrypted ntfs, and any files I need to be visible to other devices I just move to the unencrypted partition. How well does veracrypt stand today?
I have created a while a go in the truecrypt era. Sandisk U3 cruzer, a usb stick with a cd rom partition on it. the truecrypt files all in the cd rom partition. But time goes fast, now i must put veracrypt on the cd rom part.....
IIRC there was a program-less method of setting up a batch file that if you open it, it requests a password and once you enter it, a folder appears out of nowhere with all your files that were in it. Closing the batch file (and entering pass again), the folder disappears as if it wasn't even there and it is gone in space time continuum.
There is one way I use to speed up the mounting: Every container gets the same suffix ( .vc ). If you bind that to the veracrypt.exe - or the program one a mac - veracrypt comes up and all you have to do is clicking on mount.
fml, 9.0 TB here. Hopefully you see this comment because I'm wondering, does it only take a few seconds to mount it (so you can use it as a normal drive?)
Thank you for the review. It would be great to see a demonstration of working with Veracrypt in Linux, as well as the possibility (or impossibility) of using Veracrypt in Chrome OS Flex. Thank you in advance.
@@ExplainingComputers, yep! Our Federal Police in Brazil use it as a tool for security. And now, companies that want to obey GDPR and a national law about privacy should do the same! Thanks again!
I'm a little bit lost with all of the volumes options. I just wanted to connect the usb and right click to encrypt, but it seems like this isn't possible?
Thank you for the informative video. I followed all you steps and usb drive container was created successfully. The problem I'm having is the after a few minutes of the drive being mounted it dismounts for no apparent reason. Thank you in advance for any suggestions.
So much painful process for protection of one folder, SanDisk like pendrive gives pre built encryption protection software in within, why just don't put the files inside pendrive and then make it password protected, just like simple phone lock and 7zip rar like protection ? How hard is that to make system like this ? Why don't devs make this ? This is time consuming process
It's not a painful process once completed -- and far less time consuming that password protecting every single file or folder copied to the drive using a compressed file format like Zip or RAR :) I think you've missed the point of what a container is -- it is NOT a folder, but a virtual mounted volume. VeraCrypt also works in many different OS, which the SanDisk software does not. But as always, use what works best for your use case. :)
Hello Chris. Please, help me with one issue. I have a PDF file which I am going to give to the printing service. But the proble here is that I don't trust anyone. The PDF file must be printed anyway. So I've heard that there is an app which allows the PDF or any other file run on PC only when the flash drive is plugged in into a computer. Can you tell me how I can find the sofrware of this kind? Thank you in advance
+Nathan Neil It was a surprisingly fast download, and not representative of the normal speed I obtain! :) I am in the UK with a non-BT provider, but across the BT broadband infrastructure. It is a very legacy arrangement (two provider takeovers back) that they would dearly like me to "upgrade" from to an unbundled package. But as long as it works, I am letting sleeping dogs lie. And what really matters is how far you are from the exchange, and I have a cabinet fairly close.
It depends on your use case! An encrypted drive with VeraCrypt is cheaper, but more cumbersome to use, and cannot be accessed on some devices (eg Android or iOS tablets). Both options are secure.
When you created the volume, the filesystem was set as NTFS (5:25)...and later, to be able to copy and paste the volume to the usb drive you had to format and change the drive to exFAT. Does the filesystem choosen to create the volume influences in anything in that regard?
The file system for the USB drive and for the volume are not linked, so no, the file system chosen to create the volume has no influence on anything else. But the file system on the drive must be able to accommodate a file of the size of the volume created (which to the drive is just a large file).
I find my no problems using NTFS drives across Windows, Android and Linux. :) The only alternative would be exFAT (when working with files larger than 4GB).
+Anal Prolapse In My Bum When I'm Filled With Cum By Onii-Chan And His Friends While I'm A Cumdump ♥ Yes, the screen resolution here in both Windows 10 and Windows 7 here is 1280x720. I set things up to record in this resolution (and also enlarge some font settings), so that people watching at lower resolutions -- or watching lean-back on a TV -- can see what is going on! :)
Thank you for this great but simple and easy to follow video! I wanted to use the system for years to protect my financial and work documents but I haven’t been able to figure it out. It may seem strange to you because you’re just opening a program and following it through but keeping things simple and explaining what you’re doing as you do is the key for me anyway. One question I have a Mac user. Which file system do I encrypt the USB drive so I can use large files for the Mac? I hope that makes sense. So when I want to format my USB drive to handle for example 30 GB on a Mac which file system do I choose is it the same ex fat like windows? Thank you very much
if you intend to move files between operating systems than use exFat if you only use mac than use what provided by default by mac OS. exFat is sort of universal file system which works in all major OS
depends on the need, if you need usb encrypted to use in multiple OS this is a good alternative, in fact thats why i saw this video, ext4 luks will only work on linux.
Raul A. Gomez Not sure how it would work, but there are EXT "drivers" for Windows, and the defunct FreeOTFE (and its "successor" DoxBox) will recognize LUKS volumes.
I just bought a 3TB external Hard drive, and I want to encrypt the entire thing so that I'll effectively have a portable safe that I can open on any Windows computer (or most). My computer has only 500GB of data available total, so I'll probably have to save VeraCrypt on the actual Hard drive first, then run it from there. Will this still work? Do I have to select anything different? I just want to make sure I don't accidentally brick my 3TB hard drive.
If you want to encrypt the whole drive, you will need to install/run Veracrypt from your PC (the files are very small). If you want these files on the hard drive, you will need to create one or more partitions or Veracrypt containers on the drive. Good Luck!
@@ExplainingComputers Thank you! I couldn't understand the concept of dedicating only some space of my hard drive to Veracrypt, while still having open access of files on the remaining unencrypted space. Thank again!
No problem. Only this evening I created a 150GB Veracrypt container. Just think of a container as a file (which it is), which you can access as a drive once you mount it with Veracrypt.
Hello Christopher, when I ask to do this on a flash drive, a message about "Windows Fast Startup" appeared. Could you explain what it is? I'll leave the text for you to read. "Warning: Windows Fast Startup is enabled and it is known to cause issues when working with veracrypt volumes. It is advised to disable it for better security and usability". I had this doubt because I chose the portable version of veracrypt and to be doing it on a pendrive.
Not a USB storage device. But you can use a USB security key as the means of unlocking your PC -- something like a YubiKey, which I cover in this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-uYUfOP4UKSM.html
great video. just had a few questions. first of all keep in mind that i'm kind of new to this information but i am definitely looking forward to learning more about computers and other hardware over time. 8:25 you mentioned that by default, usb drives are formatted to be fat32 for the usb to be used on a wider variety of computers. you reformatted it to exfat stating that it is better suited to flash memory. does this mean that exfat is just as compatible with a wide variety of systems the way fat32 is? also, are you able to change the format after copying the large file over to the usb without causing any issues? 11:45 it shows that there are many different drives to mount the file to. does it matter which drive the file is mounted to? like for example if mounted to a certain drive would it cause problems for the pc? are we able to have multiple encrypted files at a time? if so, are we able to mount multiple encrypted files at a time? if so, are we able to mount multiple files to the same drive or is it necessary that different encrypted files be mounted to different drives? 13:00 i notice you kept the veracrypt.exe file opened. while accessing an encrypted file is it necessary to keep this page open? for example, if we are accessing the encrypted file for a long period of time, would it cause problems to close this page? also, is it necessary to dismount the files from the drives before ejecting the flash drive? if so, what are some problems that can occur from not dismounting the files from the drives before ejecting the flash drive? what if the files to run veracrypt that are on the flash drive are placed inside of an encrypted folder by accident? in that situation, is the only way to access the encrypted file to run veracrypt from a computer rather than the flash drive? i noticed that the file EC_Videos you created is not a folder, yet it is able to store other files. i suppose this is because it was created as a volume by the veracrypt software, yet it looks exactly like a default file. assuming that someone forgot the name to their encrypted file and lost the location of it somewhere among other files, what can they do to find the encrypted file again? EDIT: will there be any way to prevent someone from ruining the flash drive by plugging it in and making new encrypted files using the veracrypt software other than formatting the entire flash drive? if the entire flash drive is formatted, is the only way to unlock it to run veracrypt from the computer that the flash drive is plugged into?
Exfat is not as widely compatible as fat32, so a drive formatted exfat may well not be readable by all computers (including tablets). So only format exfat if you need to create very large encrypted volumes ((bigger than 2GB) as I do here. You cannot change the formatting later. It does not matter which (free) drive letter you map an enypted volume to, and you can have as many open as you like, although each will have to map to its own drive letter. You will need to keep Veracrypt open when accessing Veracrypt encryted volumes, and you should dismount the volumes before ejecting a drive. If you moved the Veracrypt files into the encrypted folder (very unlikely), you would indeed have to access your encrypted volumes using Veracrypt running from somewhere else. VeraCrypt containers -- like EC_Videos here -- are blocks of space on your drive that VeraCrypt can access and mount as a volume (drive). They have nothing to do with normal files or folders, and once mounted can, within reason, contain as many files or folders as you wish. You could search for a Veracypt container by file name, but nothing else. It is up to the user to keep track of them! You can password protext the VeraCrypt program, but cannot stop somebody deleting or formatting your drive. Formatting destroys all data in a drive -- if somebody formats your drive, any Veracrypt containers on the drive will be deleted. You may want to consider a product like this: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-R_Nu1Snet4s.html
yes, i see. thank you for answering my questions. the information is great. i already saw the vid about the datashur pro and i considered buying it. i don't think that the datashur is the kind of usb i should have. it seems more like it's the kind of usb that learns more towards business uses. first of all it's a bit too expensive for me, and i'll likely need more than 64gb over the next year or so. the keypad worries me a bit too. i can't help but imagine that one of my family members or friends might get their hands on it for a few minutes for whatever reason. if they are bored and intuitively decide to type in random passwords they could accidentally wipe all my data. i don't usually keep my usb in an area where anyone can get their hands on it, but it's still a possibility. after watching this veracrypt video i had the idea that when i buy my 128gb flash drive i can use veracrypt to create an encrypted volume which covers the majority of the drive, which the exeption of space to hold the veracrypt.exe. the rest of the veracrypt files will be within the encrypted volume. so i a random person tries to activate my usb from my computer or a different computer like when i am at the bathroom or something, all they will have access to is the .exe file. i figure this is for the best since most people don't know too much about hardware and software. whenever i want to access it all i have to do is launch veracrypt and then i will have access to the full space. is this a good idea?
@@ExplainingComputers I got it to work fine on Linux, but I want it cross platform, so I should copy those program files for both Windows and Linux to the USB? Except I can't seem to download Windows version on my Linux, nor do I know how to extract individual files for Linux to put on usb.
Good video! A few questions. How were you able to delete the ‘EC’ file from the first computer if it’s supposed to be encrypted? What happens if you tried to open the 30GB ‘EC’ file on the usb drive on the laptop but Veracruz wasn’t installed? Also it seems a little odd that the encrypted contain file ‘EC’ would be immediately accessible if it’s encrypted?
@@spotlight761 Because using a container is far, far more flexible -- for example you can copy a container file to another drive as a totally secure entity.
I am visually impaired. I do not know which file you used on your flash drive to access the secured drive on another machine. I am a little lost on accessing my secure drive on a new p.c. would you please clarify? Thank you
Nice and tidy video. i have a laptop with UEFI and want to fully encrypt it, but as far as i understand veracrypt doesent suport it. if so can you recomend any other software?
My only concern is that big file, which is quite suspicious - and thanks Windows for not reading partitioned flash drives. What happens, if someone takes my flash and just deletes a 10GB random file you can't even open (a movie or .zip could make sense though)? Tried deleting the container file on Mac and it's bad news. Any solutions for that?
Don't you need Admin rights on the computer to run the full Veracrypt application on the USB? I believe there is now a portable apps version, october 2016, that might not require the admin rights.
Yeah, for the portable version you need admin rights all the time. For the non-portable though, it needs to be installed by admin, but can be used with it's permission later
Yes -- if you use VeraCrypt to create an encrypted file in Linux, you can read and write to this encrypted file (volume) on a PC or Mac. Just install VeraCrypt for Linux in Linux, and for Mac on the Mac. :) I do this all the time, with encrypted files that I store on USB drives, and which I access using both Windows and Linux. It is a big advantage of VeraCrypt that you can use it across Linux, Mac and PC.
