Is Rclone encrypted or not?

Hi all,

I am new on rclone and I have some doubts about its encryption. I understood that we can encrypted an end to end file but that is not what I am looking for. I just want to confirm whenever I add something to my cloud if it will be secure while it is syncing with my cloud (Google Drive/OneDrive as ex) or we have to secure the link between rclone and cloud storage provider?
Can someone help me please?

Rclone uses https to do all transactions with Google Drive and OneDrive so the transmission of files is secure.

You can also use the crypt backend if you want more security.

Hi ncw,

Thanks for your help.
It was very clear for me.
Just need to check about the crypt backend how it works which may take time to get it very well.

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As NCW says, the HTTPS protocol will secure the transfer from point to point, independent of if you use encryption or not.

Encryption is more about not blindly trusting your cloud provider with sensitive data + having an added layer of security in case your account somehow gets compromised. If encryption is used then the files stored in the cloud will be stored as encrypted and decrypted on your end when you read it back - so anyone who can access the files but dno't have your decryption keys will just see garbled useless data.

Use encryption if:

  • You don't mean to link-share a lot of files directly from the drive (this still works, but without giving your recipient the decryption key also the files won't be readable).
  • Dealing with sensitive information
  • You don't trust Google explicitly to respect your privacy
  • You have a lot of files that might normally flag as "hacking tools", viruses or copyrighted material. Google may not realistically snoop on your files but they sure do run hash-checks to look for problems and "mis-use".

Encryption is actually one of the simplest thing to add to a remote in terms of configuration, so if you are confused then just post your config file (after redacting passwords) and we can just show you an example of how it's done. The part people usually get stuck on is that they don't understand how to point one remote to another to chain them together.

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Ok I got it now.

But tell me something: if I want to open a file inside my cloud through Rclone then it won't allow me to open (See image). Any document or spreadsheet

Screenshot%20from%202019-09-17%2018-44-16|500x500

Are you using write-cache on your mount? That is highly recommended for full compatibility when opening files for both read and write (ie. any editing like in this case). Libreoffice wants to set a write-lock on he file and it probably can't do that without a write-cache (or at least "minimal" level cache).

Also make sure that you use --allow-other option on your mount if you happen to run your rclone mount from another account than you are trying to use the files from.

Hi, Sorry for the late reply.
You mean to use the command rclone mount --write-cache remote: or rclone mount --allow other remote:?
Sorry for all these questions as I am new on rclone?

You can use both, and you can add as many flags (options) as you want to as long as they are relevant to the command you are running. So for example:

rclone mount MyGdrive: X: --vfs-cache-mode writes --allow-other

(note that while I use X on windows, on Linux you specify a folder - usually in /mnt, see Linux instrucitons in the documentation if unsure)

The write cache is probably needed to fix the problem. The allow-other may not be if you mount and use the drive on the same account. Most people I think prefer --allow-other because that makes it behave more similar to how a regular HDD would.

Ok I could make it work by using the command rclone mount --vfs-cache-mode full remote:
It has been very helpful.
Also I discovered that it does not sync automatically unless I run the command rclone sync remote: to update it..
Last questions are:
1- How to make it sync automatically when mounted?
2- How to put my drives mount whenever I start my system?

Sorry for all this as I am new on rclone and I must say a big thank you for all the support.

I do not generally recommend cache mode full.

full cache will download files completely before opening them, so this stops you from being able to stream things like music or video. It can also feel very sluggish. It is meant for special use-cases.
Write cache (also) has 100% compatibility with all operations the OS expect of a HDD, so it should work just as well, and this is the mode generally recommended for general use.


1 - It should already do this automatically. It is built into the mount functionality. When you do writes to the cloud drive, this change is saved to the write cache and then immediately starts uploading.

If you add these two flags to your commend you will get much more information about what is happening in the terminal window:

--verbose (or just -v)
--stats 10s

-v will give more feedback in general and --stats 10s will tell you the status of any uploads and downloads every 10 seconds (you can change the timer if you want).

As soon as the files enter the write cache they should appear to be available on the mounted drive and be fully functional from that point. The upload is handled seamlessly in the background.


2 - Either by running a startup script or running rclone as a service. The service method is generally considered to the "right" way to do this. @Animosity022 has a big post about "recommended settings" where he shares his Linux scripts and you should be able to copy his service-file and just make minor alternations to it.

Setting up a service is not spesific to rclone, so if you google this you should also get lots of general guides.

Sorry what do you mean by "commend "? I have tried rclone -v or --status 10s and it did not work.:no_mouth:
I am a bit confused :upside_down_face: with this part now? Because I have tried on gdrive to change a file name and then check on rcloud to check how long it would take to update but it only update if I umount then mount rclone as well as if I open another terminal and then run the command rclone sync remote:

In terms of of the cache mode, the writes option seems to make big difference.
I will have to research how to run rclone in the startup.

Thanks again....:smiley:

commend was jut a typo. It's supposed to be command. You add these options behind the regular command. Expanding my previous example, it would then look like this:

rclone mount MyGdrive: X: --vfs-cache-mode writes --allow-other -v --status 10s

With those 2 last flags you should be able to see a lot more information about what files are being worked on and what is happening.
It is not needed to manually sync, and besides rclone sync remote: is not a correct command. the sync command expects you to provide 2 locations. What to sync, and where to sync it to. An example might be rclone sync *c:\MyFiles\ MyRemote:\MyFiles* (this would sync the "my files" folder to a folder on your remote. The way you tried to use it indicates you might not understand how this command works.

This part is the command (what to do)

rclone mount

This part are the main parameters for the command (do the command on what?)

MyGdrive: X:

All these 4 are flags or options (add or change the way rclone does things)

--vfs-cache-mode writes
--allow-other
-v
--status 10s

All rclone commands (and most commandline-programs in general, as I am sure you know from using Linux) follow this general structure.

The only reason why -v has only one "-" is because it's a shorter way to write --verbose