What happens to encrypted data if I change my OS?

I understand that rclone gives me the ability to encrypt my data before sending them to remote services such as Google Drive.

My question is, what happens to my encrypted data if I change/lose my current OS? What happens to my rclone.config and password? Would I lose it all? If not, how can I get the same config back in new OS ?

Just backup the config file. As long you have that, you will be able to access your encrypted data.

What exactly in the config file is important? Is it just the password?

RClone is completely stateless so every parameter that you configure is present only in the config file. Mostly it's just the password that can't be recovered but there are other remote specific parameters (if you have any) too that you will need to re-configure if you lose the config file.

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I agree, keeping a backup of the config file is a good approach.
But also, your password is being "obscured" before written to the config file, which means if you don't remember the original password you will not be able to re-create the remote from scratch without "sneaking" in the already obscured password from your backup config. So I would say that keeping a copy of the password (and also the "optional but recommended password or pass phrase for salt", which is effectively another password) in a safe place is also recommended. And then, if you can easily reproduce the rest of the remote configuration apart from your password, keeping the password is enough.

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