How to use Joplin with Nextcloud for encrypted notes

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As we anticipated a few months ago, with theadvent of the difficulty level within our articles we have decided to propose, from time to time, some slightly more complex topics. We will always try to make everything within reach human being. Today we wanted to inaugurate these new guides with Joplin, and more precisely on how to use Joplin with Nextcloud to have encrypted notes.

Attention: we will not focus in this article on all the potential and characteristics of Joplin. They are truly endless and it's a great application alternative to Google Keep which we have already talked about other times. In this article we will simply explain how to use Joplin with Nextcloud (or WebDAV) to have encrypted notes.

In fact, Joplin can be used locally, i.e. without putting your notes online, but it can also be used in the cloud.

Joplin Cloud and Joplin on Nextcloud

For this last solution there is the excellent all-inclusive service Joplin Cloud which offers 1GB of space and note synchronization for a few euros per month. By paying a little more you can also get other features, but at this moment we are mainly interested in talking about sharing your notes in the cloud.

In fact, so far there doesn't seem to be anything different from what is offered by Standard Notes or from Notesnook (which recently became Open source ¹) you might be thinking. Yet there is a truly interesting characteristic of Joplin and it is the one we are going to address today.

It is in fact possible to use a server other than theirs as a database: it is possible to use Dropbox, One Drive, S3, Nextcloud or WebDav. And it is precisely these last two that interest us and which we want to talk to you about.

Nextcloud, as you probably already know, is one of the best alternatives to Google Drive and uses the free WebDAV protocol. There are many providers that allow you to exploit the WebDAV protocol here you will find a non-definitive list of all compatible cloud services. We find many providers known to us such as the excellent one kDrive And Koofr (both only in the paid version) and of course any provider Nextcloud.

How to use Joplin with Nextcloud for encrypted notes

So, as you may have guessed, it is possible to use your own cloud to support the notes saved on Joplin using a subscription that we already use for other things. But let's get to the most interesting thing, which is the encrypted notes. Because it's fine to place your notes on Nextcloud or any other provider but if these are in clear text it can become a major problem especially if we use the notes for very personal things.

And this is where one of Joplin's coolest features comes in: the ability to encrypt notes on your own cloud! In this way your provider will only see alphanumeric files of little weight and will in no way be able to know what your notes contain because the only ones who know the password to decrypt them are you.

The steps to follow to achieve this

• First we need to get a version of Joplin. Once downloaded let's go in Instruments -> Options;

• now let's go to the section Cryptography and press on “Enable encryption” and enter a password of your choice. Please note that it is essential not to lose this password because it is irrecoverable! Use a password manager, For example Bitwarden;

• Now you have to choose your reference drive, so let's move on to the called tab Synchronization: if you want to choose One Drive or other providers, select your favorite and follow the wizard. Otherwise if you want to use WebDAV select WebDAV and put the correct link to your provider. Here you will find a list but taking a few things into account:
  • some providers require a paid subscription to use WebDAV;
  • the link may be different from the one in the list (always check by searching your provider's FAQ) and it is probably better if you dedicate a folder to it. For example https://connect.drive.infomaniak.com/kDrive/Joplin
  • if you have activated two-factor authorization it is very likely that you will first have to create an application password and not log in with your normal username and password;

• Choose a sync interval and leave all other advanced options intact as well.

Your encrypted notes

Done! You now have your notes in the cloud encrypted. Start writing some notes and check for yourself by going to the folder set on your provider: you will see that a series of incomprehensible alphanumeric files appear.

If you want, you can now use Joplin on any other compatible platform, such as Android or iOS. Simply repeat the procedure by putting the correct URL back in the synchronization path.

Let's hope this ours first guide on difficulty three it was to your liking!

1. Notesnook on GitHub[↩]

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