VeraCrypt - Free Open source disk encryption with strong security for the Paranoid

Main Program Window

Select File

Allows you to select a file-hosted VeraCrypt volume. After you select it, you can perform various operations on it (e.g., mount it by clicking ‘Mount’). It is also possible to select a volume by dragging its icon to the ‘VeraCrypt.exe’ icon (VeraCrypt will be automatically launched then) or to the main program window.

Select Device

Allows you to select a VeraCrypt partition or a storage device (such as a USB memory stick). After it is selected, you can perform various operations with it (e.g., mount it by clicking ‘Mount’).

Note: There is a more comfortable way of mounting VeraCrypt partitions/devices – see the section Auto-Mount Devices for more information.

Mount

After you click ‘Mount’, VeraCrypt will try to mount the selected volume using cached passwords (if there are any) and if none of them works, it prompts you for a password. If you enter the correct password (and/or provide correct keyfiles), the volume will be mounted.

Important: Note that when you exit the VeraCrypt application, the VeraCrypt driver continues working and no VeraCrypt volume is dismounted.

Auto-Mount Devices

This function allows you to mount VeraCrypt partitions/devices without having to select them manually (by clicking ‘Select Device’). VeraCrypt scans headers of all available partitions/devices on your system (except DVD drives and similar devices) one by one and tries to mount each of them as a VeraCrypt volume. Note that a VeraCrypt partition/device cannot be identified, nor the cipher it has been encrypted with. Therefore, the program cannot directly “find” VeraCrypt partitions. Instead, it has to try mounting each (even unencrypted) partition/device using all encryption algorithms and all cached passwords (if there are any). Therefore, be prepared that this process may take a long time on slow computers.

If the password you enter is wrong, mounting is attempted using cached passwords (if there are any). If you enter an empty password and if Use keyfiles is unchecked, only the cached passwords will be used when attempting to auto-mount partitions/devices. If you do not need to set mount options, you can bypass the password prompt by holding down the Shift key when clicking Auto- Mount Devices (only cached passwords will be used, if there are any).

Drive letters will be assigned starting from the one that is selected in the drive list in the main window.

Dismount

This function allows you to dismount the VeraCrypt volume selected in the drive list in the main window. To dismount a VeraCrypt volume means to close it and make it impossible to read/write from/to the volume.

Dismount All

Note: The information in this section applies to all menu items and buttons with the same or similar caption (for example, it also applies to the system tray menu item Dismount All).

This function allows you to dismount multiple VeraCrypt volumes. To dismount a VeraCrypt volume means to close it and make it impossible to read/write from/to the volume. This function dismounts all mounted VeraCrypt volumes except the following:

Partitions/drives within the key scope of active system encryption (e.g., a system partition encrypted by VeraCrypt, or a non-system partition located on a system drive encrypted by VeraCrypt, mounted when the encrypted operating system is running).
VeraCrypt volumes that are not fully accessible to the user account (e.g. a volume mounted from within another user account).
VeraCrypt volumes that are not displayed in the VeraCrypt application window. For example, system favorite volumes attempted to be dismounted by an instance of VeraCrypt without administrator privileges when the option 'Allow only administrators to view and dismount system favorite volumes in VeraCrypt' is enabled.

Wipe Cache

Clears all passwords (which may also contain processed keyfile contents) cached in driver memory. When there are no passwords in the cache, this button is disabled. For information on password cache, see the section Cache Password in Driver Memory.

Never Save History

If this option disabled, the file names and/or paths of the last twenty files/devices that were attempted to be mounted as VeraCrypt volumes will be saved in the History file (whose content can be displayed by clicking on the Volume combo-box in the main window).

When this option is enabled, VeraCrypt clears the registry entries created by the Windows file selector for VeraCrypt, and sets the “current directory” to the user’s home directory (in portable mode, to the directory from which VeraCrypt was launched) whenever a container or keyfile is selected via the Windows file selector. Therefore, the Windows file selector will not remember the path of the last mounted container (or the last selected keyfile). However, note that the operations described in this paragraph are not guaranteed to be performed reliably and securely (see e.g. Security Requirements and Precautions) so we strongly recommend that you encrypt the system partition/drive instead of relying on them (see System Encryption).

Furthermore, if this option is enabled, the volume path input field in the main VeraCrypt window is cleared whenever you hide VeraCrypt.

Note: You can clear the volume history by selecting Tools -> Clear Volume History.

Exit

Terminates the VeraCrypt application. The driver continues working and no VeraCrypt volumes are dismounted. When running in ‘portable’ mode, the VeraCrypt driver is unloaded when it is no longer needed (e.g., when all instances of the main application and/or of the Volume Creation Wizard are closed and no VeraCrypt volumes are mounted). However, if you force dismount on a

VeraCrypt volume when VeraCrypt runs in portable mode, or mount a writable NTFS-formatted volume on Windows Vista or later, the VeraCrypt driver may not be unloaded when you exit VeraCrypt (it will be unloaded only when you shut down or restart the system). This prevents various problems caused by a bug in Windows (for instance, it would be impossible to start VeraCrypt again as long as there are applications using the dismounted volume).

Volume Tools