Automatically encrypt files for your Google Drive

Macworld - Today Google launched Google Drive, a free-if-you-just-need-5GB-of-storage Dropbox-like service that lets you easily store and share files in the cloud.

I like the idea of free cloud storage, but I'm just the tiniest bit wary of sharing files with Google, given the company's penchant for using information I share with it to hone its advertising. For this reason, I've determined to encrypt any files I place on my Google Drive. And you can too--easily and with your new best friend, Automator.

Visit this Automator World page and download a copy of Armin Briegel's free Create Disk Images From Files action.

Launch Automator create a new Application workflow. Choose File -> Import Actions, navigate to the Create Disk Image From Files action you downloaded, and click Import. Drag this action into the workflow area. Configure the action so that the Image Location pop-up menu points to the Google Drive folder (found inside your user folder). Enable the Compress Image and Encrypt Image options, click the Options button, and enable the Show This Action When the Workflow Runs option. Save the application to the desktop.

When you want to encrypt some files and place them on Google Drive, simply drag them on top of the application workflow. They'll be compressed into a zip archive and you'll then be prompted for a password. Enter and confirm the password, click OK, and the disk image is encrypted.

Of course you'll need to pass along the password to anyone who downloads the archive. And, just as of course, you can use this same kind of workflow with Dropbox.