Adding to an encrypted zip

Help & Support
1

If I have a zip that is encrypted, which I guess means that all the items in the zip are encrypted, I have to type in my password to get to any of the files. However, if I drop a new file on the zip Dopus should ask me to provide my password so the file can be encrypted like all the others. It is misleading to just add an unencrypted file to an encrypted zip without at least giving me some kind of warning that the new file isn't being encrypted. Even if it hasn't asked me for a password while adding the file, if I've been working with an encrypted zip and have previously already provided my password (to unzip something) it's a reasonable assumption that anything I do with the zip after providing my password will involve encryption.

As an aside, I really expected when I had a zip file open some way to add a file to the zip. I was expecting something in the context menu or clicking on the "Archive Files" toolbar button (but it's gray). Since I can't drag-n-drop a file into an encrypted zip (and end up with a new encrypted file added to the zip), there is no way that I could find to get to the "add file" dialog. It's unintuitive to have to pretend I'm creating a new zip, then pointing at an old zip, just to get an encrypted file added to an encrypted zip.

Thanks!

2

If you turn off the internal zip support (Preferences / Zip & Other Archives / Zip Files) and turn on the plugin version instead (Archive and VFS Plugins), it will work like that.

3

Doesn't that mean there is a fault with zip encryption cause even the plugin should ask for a password to add to the encrypted zip file, cause it would need access to encrypt it with your password. Have you tested the zip file made with another zip archiver to check its integrity?

4

The plugin handles it fine, at least from my testing back when I wrote it.

Technically, the internal code is also valid here, even if not ideal. Some other archive tools do the same thing.

The underlying issue is that encryption in Zip files is per file not per archive. Each file can potentially have a completely different password, or no password at all, independent of any other file.

The plugin will attempt to ensure you've typed the same password as the first file in the archive when adding to a non-empty archive where the first file is encrypted. But even then, the archive may already contain files with inconsistent passwords.