Encrypt Address Books
The Viewer always stores copies of your address books locally, even if it's a synchronized address book. You might want to protect your address book data in case your computer was stolen or someone got unauthorized access to your files. This is especially important if you use the Save password feature and keep your remote access passwords in connection properties.
Important!
Address book encryption has nothing to do with the data encryption used by Remote Utilities to secure data sent over the network. The data encryption is always on, and cannot be disabled. Learn more about data encryption on the Security page.
We also recommend that you enable address book encryption if you use the Portable Viewer.
How address book encryption works
With encryption enabled you will be prompted to enter your password (encryption passphrase) and unlock the Viewer workspace:
Enabling address book encryption
To enable encryption:
- In the Viewer window select the Tools tab and click Options:
- Select the Protection tab and enable Encrypt address book:
Visit this page to learn more about other options available on this tab.
What address books are encrypted
You may have multiple address books added to your Address Book Manager with some of those books loaded into the Viewer.
In the screenshot below there are three address books in your Address Book Manager — one default address book and two custom address books. Note that records in the Address Book Manager are just paths that point at address book XML files located on the disc:
Of the three address books above two books are loaded into the Viewer — the General address book and Book #1:
If you enable address book encryption in Viewer options now, only two of your address books — the ones currently loaded in the Viewer workspace — will get encrypted whereas the other address book will remain unencrypted:
Tips
- If encryption is ON and you load a new unencrypted address book in the Viewer, the book will get encrypted automatically with your current encryption password and the corresponding file's extension will change to
.encrypted. - If you unload an encrypted address book from your Viewer through the Address Book Manager, the corresponding address book still remains encrypted on the disc. You can load this book back into the Viewer provided that you didn't change your encryption password in Viewer options since you unloaded the book.
- Due to program design you cannot load an encrypted address book into the Viewer using the Address Book Manager. However, you can import an encrypted book into your Viewer.
- If you need to access an encrypted book from multiple Viewer machines, you can use the Portable Viewer. For example, you can copy your portable Viewer onto a Dropbox folder, encrypt your address book/books in that Viewer and then run the Viewer out of that folder on different machines.
