E2EE enabled and active but files are still unencrypted

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I just enabled E2EE for an account and I confirmed that it is active and setup correctly from the Android app.

However I can still see the contents of files from the web interface and I have not enabled support for E2EE there, so I assume the files are still unencrypted :confused:

I tested it by creating a new file from the Android app with the encryption enabled as well.

Did I miss any steps? :thinking:

I am using the latest versions of both the server and client.

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I think that E2EE is only in transit. Even if you enable encryption server side, you will still see all your files when you login. It would be just encrypted at rest (in the case of server side encryption) so if someone steals your files off the server, then it will be useless to them without the encryption password. Someone else can correct me if I’m wrong, or chime in and add something I’m missing.

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E2EE encrypts the contents of designated folders. It does not encrypt every file in your account.

See E2EE: README.

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E2EE encrypts files client-side. The server never handles E2EE files in cleartext form. The server essentially only serves as a transit hub and has no idea of the contents. Only clients can decrypt the data. The primary aim is to be able to store data on Nextcloud Server’s that aren’t operated by you (i.e. you want privacy from the administrator) and that sort of thing.

This is in contrast to Server-Side Encryption, which is focused on encrypting data stored on untrusted External Storage repositories[1]. Here the assumption is the Nextcloud administrator is trusted, but the underlying storage medium is not.

[1] Technically this also includes object storage repositories used as Primary Storage as well.

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