Getting Started
Connect your storage
zcrypt doesn't sell you storage: you bring an account you already have. Connect a backend once and your encrypted files live there, under your control.
Bring your own storage
zcrypt is free and open source and does not run a storage farm. Your encrypted chunks live inside a platform account you connect, which means your capacity is simply the free space that platform gives you. Today zcrypt supports GitHub, GitLab, Hugging Face, and Telegram.
Connecting a backend
Open Settings and go to the platforms section. Add the platform you want, paste its token, and save. You can connect more than one: adding a second backend simply adds its free space to your total.
What tokens you need
At a high level, each platform needs a credential that lets zcrypt create private storage and read and write to it on your behalf. You generate these in the platform's own settings and paste them into zcrypt:
| Platform | What to provide |
|---|---|
| GitHub | A personal access token with private-repository access |
| GitLab | A personal access token with project read/write scope |
| Hugging Face | An access token that can create and write to private repos |
| Telegram | A bot token plus a private channel for the bot to post to |
The exact scopes and step-by-step instructions for each platform live in Bring your own storage.
Tokens are encrypted at rest
The platform tokens you save are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM before they are stored. They are not kept as plain text in our database. zcrypt uses them only to move your already encrypted chunks to and from your backend.
Scope your tokens narrowly
Grant each token only the access zcrypt needs, and revoke it from the platform's own settings at any time to instantly cut zcrypt off from that backend.Space grows automatically
You never manage repositories by hand. zcrypt auto-creates private repositories (or uses your Telegram channel) and, as one fills toward its platform's limit, rotates to a fresh one automatically. Your usable space grows on its own as you upload.
- •New repositories are created on demand, no setup step for you.
- •When a repository nears its platform's size threshold, zcrypt moves new chunks to the next one.
- •Connecting an additional platform expands the pool further.