🔒 FileVault

A modular terminal-based encrypted file storage and retrieval system with compression, configuration, and TUI support using Questionary.

Video demo: FileVault Youtube demo

🚀 Features

• Upload any file from your system:
  • Compresses it with Zstandard (zstd)
  • Encrypts it with a Fernet key (secured using PBKDF2 + user password)
• Download previously uploaded files:
  • Decrypts + decompresses them, restores original content
• Secure encryption key storage
  • Key is encrypted and saved; user password required on each run
• First-time setup
  • User is prompted to configure upload/download directories and password
• Interactive TUI using questionary
  • Arrow-key navigation, input validation, and context-sensitive menus

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📂 Project Structure

.filevault_config/
├── config.json         # User config (upload/download dirs)
└── secrets.json        # Salt + encrypted Fernet key (secured)

app/
├── config.py           # Handles config loading, validation, saving
├── uploader.py         # Compression + encryption logic
├── downloader.py       # Decryption + decompression logic
├── vault_app.py        # Main app logic (upload/download interfaces)
└── settings.py         # Singleton-style config access

cli_interface/Questionary/
├── questionary_tui.py      # Main TUI class using Questionary
├── question_bank.py        # Centralized question definitions
├── question_routing.py     # Maps actions to questions and function flows using "Dispatch Map" pattern
└── sequence_functions.py   # Functions executed for each user action

Data/
├── Downloads           # Default downloads folder
├── Uploads             # Default uploads folder
└── Samples             # (Optional) test sample files

encryption_key_generator.py   # Generates + encrypts Fernet key (PBKDF2)
main.py                       # Entry point

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🔐 How Encryption Works

1. On first launch:

   • User is prompted for a password.
   • A new Fernet key is generated.
   • The Fernet key is encrypted using a key derived from:
     • The password
     • A random salt
   • The encrypted Fernet key and salt are saved.

2. On subsequent launches:

   • User re-enters the password.
   • The key is re-derived and used to decrypt the saved Fernet key.

3. This Fernet key is then used to encrypt or decrypt user files.

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⚙️ Configuration

• Stored in .filevault_config/config.json
• Editable via the app’s "Change configurations" menu.
• Includes:
  • Upload directory
  • Download directory

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📌 Notes

• Files are encrypted one at a time — no support for folders (yet).
• Password is not stored anywhere or changeable (yet). If lost, files cannot be recovered.
• No online dependency — everything is local.
• If you upload the same file again, it will be overwritten.

📦 Dependencies

• cryptography
• zstandard
• tqdm
• questionary

Create a python virtual environment:

python3 -m venv .venv

Install via:

pip install -r requirements.txt

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▶️ Run the FileVault

To start the application, run:

python3 main.py

✅ Future work

• Action history log
• Password change flow
• Uploading folders
• Argparse CLI, to make the app usable with no TUI.

👨‍💻 Author

Built by Mazen Yasser with ❤️ and ☕

Approximate development time: 30 hours over 5 days | Approximate Lines of code: 355

If you loved this project and wanted to connect, you can find me on LinkedIn