Encrypt Your Entire Dropbox

While its not a good idea to put anything sensitive in your Dropbox, that doesn't mean anything in there is for public viewing.

Some people get around this by using TrueCrypt or .sparseimages inside the folder but this gets very cumbersome and not very practical to have your entire Dropbox inside an encrypted disk image in the cloud.

One way to keep your files private is to locally encrypt your folder.

1. First, rename your Dropbox folder to Dropbox2.

2. Create an encrypted disk image:

hdiutil create ~/Documents/Dropbox.sparsebundle -size 2gb -encryption -type SPARSE -fs HFS+ -volname Dropbox

3. Symlink this path to your old Dropbox location

ln -s /Volumes/Dropbox ~/Dropbox

4. Create an applescript to unlock your disk image and start Dropbox.

5. Add the applescript to your login items by saving script as an application then in System Preferences » Accounts » Login Items add the application.

Now, when OS X launches you will be asked for the password to the encrypted image and then it will mount it and start Dropbox.

As long as you unmount the disk image or shut down the computer when you leave your files will be protected.