Terrapane News

We are pleased to announce the release of AES Crypt 4.7 across all supported platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD, and Android.

While this update touches all target operating systems to maintain consistency, the primary focus of version 4.7 is a core structural redesign for Windows.

Windows Architecture Refactoring and Start Menu Integration

When AES Crypt was first released over two decades ago, it functioned as a lightweight shell extension for Windows File Explorer. Over the years, new functionality and evolving operating system requirements led to larger overall binary sizes. Recent context menu navigation changes in Windows 11 also made finding context-menu extensions less intuitive for some users, prompting requests for a dedicated desktop application.

To address these platform changes, we have rearchitected AES Crypt for Windows:

• Dedicated Start Menu Application: AES Crypt now installs as a standalone application accessible directly from the Start menu. Launching the application opens a file picker window, allowing users to select files for encryption or decryption without relying on context menus.
• Lightweight Shell Extension: Context menu logic has been decoupled and moved into a minimal dynamic-link library (DLL). This significantly reduces memory overhead and resource consumption within Windows File Explorer.
• Unified Processing Flow: Right-clicking a file to encrypt or decrypt now seamlessly routes through the primary AES Crypt executable, providing a consistent user experience regardless of how the application is launched.

Maintenance Updates Across All Platforms

Along with the Windows refactoring, version 4.7 includes internal optimizations, bug fixes, and general code improvements shared across all builds. While changes on non-Windows platforms are primarily under the hood, updating ensures version parity across your environments.

Download the Update

AES Crypt 4.7 is available now. Visit the official downloads page to update your installation.

We are pleased to announce the release of the native Single Pass application for Android devices.

Single Pass offers an alternative approach to traditional password management. Rather than storing passwords in an encrypted database or cloud vault, Single Pass dynamically generates secure, site-specific PINs and passwords on demand. By combining a single master password with a service name—such as a domain name or account identifier—Single Pass uses SHA-256 hashing to compute unique credentials for each service you use. Because passwords are derived algorithmically rather than stored, there is no password vault to sync, back up, or risk exposing.

Key Features

• Stateless Password Generation: Computes unique, strong passwords and PINs instantly from a master password and service name without storing credential records.
• Native Android App: Built specifically for Android as a native application rather than a web wrapper, ensuring smooth performance and integration with the mobile operating system.
• Complete Offline Operation: Performs all cryptographic computations locally on your device. It requires no network connection and no special app permissions.
• Cross-Platform Compatibility: Generated credentials match those produced by the Single Pass Progressive Web App (PWA), browser extensions, and command-line tools, allowing seamless access across mobile and desktop environments.
• Privacy and Security Focused: Operates with zero advertisements, zero tracking, and no background network activity.

Availability

The Single Pass Android app is available now on the Google Play Store for a small, one-time purchase price, which helps support ongoing software development and public server infrastructure. A free web version, browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, and command-line scripts remain available at singlepass.us.

We are excited to announce the release of AES Crypt 4.6. While much of this release focuses on internal code quality, testing, and modern C++ standards, it also brings notable security and user experience enhancements across platforms.

Key Highlights

• Enhanced Security with Increased Key Derivation: We have doubled the default key derivation iterations from 300,000 to 600,000. This significantly increases resistance against brute-force password guessing attacks without impacting normal usability.
• Linux Desktop Progress Bar & Cancel Option: Linux GUI users now get a dedicated progress window with a cancel button during encryption and decryption—bringing parity to a feature previously available only on Windows and macOS.
• Alpine Linux Support: Official package builds are now available for Alpine Linux, published in both .tgz and .apk formats.

Complete List of Enhancements

• Linux Desktop Progress Meter: Added a visual progress bar with an operation cancel button for desktop Linux environments.
• Stronger Key Derivation: Increased PBKDF2 iterations to 600,000 across all platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux/Unix).
• Command-Line Key Passing via Standard Input: You can now pass passwords or keys using -k - during encryption and decryption, matching key generation behavior.
• Expanded Alpine Linux Distribution: Published official .apk packages and .tgz archives for Alpine Linux users.
• C++ Core Guidelines Alignment: Refactored internal code structures to align with modern C++ Core Guidelines, reducing potential bug vectors and improving long-term maintainability.
• Code Optimization & Redundancy Reduction: Streamlined the command-line codebase for improved readability, structure, and execution efficiency.
• Enhanced Automated Testing: Expanded unit test coverage integrated into our nightly build pipelines to maintain ongoing software reliability.

Get the Update

AES Crypt 4.6 is available now across all supported platforms. Head over to the downloads page to update your installation.

We’ve released AES Crypt 4.5, bringing a helpful new capability to command-line users along with our ongoing background improvements.

What’s New

• Force Overwrite Option (-f): The command-line utility now includes a -f flag, allowing you to forcefully overwrite existing output files during encryption or decryption when desired.
• Internal Refinements: As with every release, this version incorporates general code optimizations, minor bug fixes, and continuous security enhancements under the hood.

Get the Update

AES Crypt 4.5 is available now across supported platforms. Visit the downloads page to upgrade to the latest build.

AES Crypt 4.4, now available for all supported platforms (Windows, Linux, macOS, and more), brings new features and improvements to enhance your encryption experience.

Platform-specific enhancements:

• Windows: A new "reveal" button lets you view the entered password to ensure it's correct.
• Linux: You can now launch AES Crypt from the applications menu, opening your default file browser to choose files for encryption or decryption.
• All Platforms: The AES Crypt "paper" icon for encrypted files has been updated to be clearer and cleaner. It is now fully scalable on Linux.

As always, we've included several internal improvements, but there are no changes to core functionality.

You can download AES Crypt 4.4 from our website https://www.aescrypt.com/download/ or use winget on Windows to perform an update.

We're excited to announce that AES Crypt version 4.3 has been officially released and is now available for all supported platforms—Windows, macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD.

Here’s what’s new in AES Crypt 4.3:

• Performance improvements: Core encryption and decryption routines are now modestly faster, with noticeable benefits especially for macOS users.
• Better Windows integration: Error messages on Windows now appear in standard system dialog boxes for a cleaner, more consistent user experience.
• Security enhancements for Linux builds
• Official Arch Linux support: AES Crypt is now available via official Arch Linux packages.
• Signed packages: All Linux and FreeBSD package files now have accompanying ".sig" signature files, available alongside the download for added verification and peace of mind.

The security enhancements for Linux mentioned include:

• Position Independent Executables (PIE) and Intel Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET) are now enabled.
• RELRO (Relocation Read-Only) is now in place to help prevent runtime tampering.
• Immediate binding on startup reduces the risk of certain overwrite attacks.

We are pleased to announce the release of AES Crypt 4.2 across all supported platforms.

What’s New for Windows and Linux

For our Windows and Linux users, version 4.2 is a solid maintainability release focused on under-the-hood performance improvements and minor bug fixes to ensure maximum stability.

Major Enhancements for macOS

The bulk of our effort for this release went into refining the macOS experience. If you’ve been following closely, you might have noticed a few silent point updates leading up to this release that laid the groundwork. With version 4.2, the Mac edition now delivers parity with features long enjoyed by our Windows users.

Here are the key updates for Mac users:

• Direct File Selection: You can now launch AES Crypt directly from your Applications folder or Launchpad. The app will immediately present a Finder window, letting you choose the files you wish to encrypt or decrypt.
• Streamlined "Open With" Workflow: Context-menu encryption is even easier. Right-click any file in Finder, choose Open With, and select AES Crypt. (If it doesn't appear in the top list for certain custom file extensions, simply choose Other to select it).
• Background Processing & Progress Controls: Long-running operations no longer block your workspace. AES Crypt now processes encryption and decryption tasks seamlessly in the background. A dedicated progress window gives you clear visibility into ongoing operations—along with a Stop button to cancel tasks at any time, which is especially handy when processing large batches of files.

Download the Update

Version 4.2 is available now. Upgrade today to take advantage of these workflow and performance improvements.

AES Crypt 4.1 was released for all supported platforms. This is a point release that addresses a number of non-critical bugs and improvements addressed since the release of the major 4.0 release at the end of August.

AES Crypt 4.1 also re-introduced support for Intel-based Mac platforms. That support was dropped with the major 4.0 release as Terrapane incorrectly assumed most people had migrated to the newer M-series processors. Now, both M-series (Apple Silicon / Arm) and Intel processors are supported.

Terrapane will continue to support both until demand diminishes substantially.

One of the most popular file encryption software products on the Internet is AES Crypt. This project was supported by Packetizer, but has now been transitioned to Terrapane where the original author continues development and support.

AES Crypt 4 is the fourth major version of the popular encryption software. AES Crypt 4 is available as a GUI and command-line application for Windows, Linux, and Mac, with both binaries and source code published.

Key Updates:

• Enhanced Security: The key derivation function now uses FIPS-recommended PBKDF2 using HMAC-SHA-512 with 300,000 iterations, configurable via the command-line tool. We’ve also switched to PKCS#7 padding.
• Performance Boost: Intel Intrinsics functions improve performance by approximately 30% on Intel processors.
• Apple Silicon Support: The Mac version is now compiled for Apple Silicon.
• Safety Measures: Mac and Linux versions now refuse to overwrite existing files, aligning with the Windows version.
• Command-Line Enhancements: More options, integrated key generation, and a progress meter for long files.
• Code Overhaul: Rewritten in C++20 with daily unit tests and improved integration tests for enhanced code safety.
• Backward Compatibility: AES Crypt 4 remains fully compatible with all previous versions, ensuring access to encrypted files created by older versions.

All packages are available at https://www.aescrypt.com.