28 Dic 19 How to encrypt and decrypt a text file with vim

I always use VIM any single day of my life starting from 1994, and I did not realize that it’s now possible to encrypt and decrypt files with it without using gnupg! This is one of the reasons why I love vim so much: there are always things that you can learn from it!
So, I’ll now show you how to use vim to encrypt and decrypt your text files.

We can start creating a new encrypted text file with the command below:

# vim -x encryptedfile.txt
Enter encryption key:
Enter same key again:

Once you’ve entered an encryption key (WARNING: don’t forget it or you will lose your clear text data forever!!!) you can use vim as always, write your clear text data, save and quit.

# file encryptedfile.txt
encryptedfile.txt: Vim encrypted file data
# cat encryptedfile.txt
VimCrypt~03!�-
�
��[�v��>P��(�%

So, your file is now encrypted. To recover access to your clear text data, just open the file back with vim using the correct passphrase you used to create your file:

# vim encryptedfile.txt
Need encryption key for "encryptedfile.txt"
Enter encryption key:

You could also decide to change your passphrase or encrypt a clear text file, using the :set key=pwd vim command, like this:

:set key=mystrongpasswordyou'llneverfind
:wq
# file encryptedfile.txt 
encryptedfile.txt: Vim encrypted file data

If you want to decrypt the file and save it clear text, just use an empty key with the :set key= command, after you opened the encrypted file with the correct passphrase:

:set key=
:wq
# file encryptedfile.txt
encryptedfile.txt: ASCII text

So, this way you can create an encrypted file protected with a passphrase, get read/write access to the encrypted file, decrypt the file to clear text and change the passphrase.

Hope you all will enjoy this like me!!