#ensafe

Well, if you’ve been poking around in Enlocked Anywhere, you may have noticed a new capability we’re testing and expect to officially announce shortly.  We call it Ensafe, and it lets users encrypt messages in their Gmail account even if they were originally sent in the clear (yes, right now it is Gmail only… stay tuned if you use another email provider).  So, all those older emails that you want to keep for your files, but would rather not have anyone read if they hacked your account, can now be easily encrypted.  Or, if someone sends you a message that contains sensitive information, put it in an encrypted folder and even Google administrators won’t be able to read it (nor someone who borrows your phone and opens up your mail).

To set up Ensafe to encrypt a “folder” (or in Google language, messages with a certain “label”), for now you will need to go to the Enlocked website and use the web interface, Enlocked Anywhere.  Simply click on the “Lock” icon above your messages.  This will take you to the Ensafe configuration page. Now, simply select the folders you want to encrypt.  It’s that easy.  If a folder is currently encrypted you can simply uncheck the box and the messages will restored to their original state.  In a future update of our browser plugins and mobile apps, we’ll provide the ability to manage Ensafe from the client side.

Note that for performance reasons, the encryption task will be done in the background, and depending on the size of your archived folder it may take several minutes, or even longer.  Also, there are certain system folders / labels that cannot be encrypted with Ensafe, including your Inbox, Sent, Trash,  and Drafts (notice in the screen shot above, they are grayed out).