I’m new to QubesOS and I am wondering how I organise my private files and cloud backups. I would like to set up a private document folder and one for my work stuff. Can I grant certain qubes permanent access to only one of them?
My private files shall also be synced to a cloud. So I would like to set up the sync app and i.e. simple office application in a “private” qube that has access only to the private document folder. How can I do that with focus on file management?
I don’t want to copy and paste that all the time between qubes since my private stuff is more than 400GB of data.
It depends on what files are you working with.
You can use “Edit in disposable qube” function in the file manager file context menu to work with the file if it’s something like office document / image / etc.
Or you can consider using qubes-shared-folders:
But there are security considerations of using it:
Your questions don’t seem “stupid” to me. May I suggest another title: “How to share data between qubes and cloud account”?
I think that you may need to compartmentalize your data? I had the same problem starting with Qubes OS: my personal qube contained most of my data but in fact, I learned to compartmentalize it and to do a lot of copy and paste between qubes
As for the cloud aspect, one solution could be to have one account by qube. Another would be to use a new qube only to connect to the cloud, and then create “loop devices” (they are sort of fake drive that one can attach to other qubes).
if it’s something like office document / image / etc.
I think they are mostly office documents, images and videos, as you said. Some PDFs and archive files (zip, gz.7z etc). There might also be a couple of other file types, but I don’t have them in mind right now. What kind of files might be a problem with this approach with the disposable qube?
Thanks a lot! I will have a look at both approaches.
If you edit just one file then you won’t need to manually move the file, it’ll be done automatically with “Edit in disposable”:
In an app qube’s file manager, right click on the file you wish to open in a disposable, then choose “View in disposable” or “Edit in disposable”. Wait a few seconds and the default application for this file type should appear displaying the file content. This app is running in its own dedicated qube – a disposable created for the purpose of viewing or editing this very file. Once you close the viewing application the whole disposable will be destroyed. If you have edited the file and saved the changes, the changed file will be saved back to the original app qube, overwriting the original.
But this won’t work if you need multiple files or to extract them from archive etc. You’ll need to move the files manually.
I learned to compartmentalize it and to do a lot of copy and paste between qubes
In which way did you compartmentalize your data? Currently, my data is sorted into: True private documents, private pictures, and one folder for each bigger project (but with mixed contents like pictures, tables, documents, pdf, etc.).
one solution could be to have one account by qube
A problem arises: I’m paying for the account and would multiply the annual costs.
I’ll try to sum up what I did with my data, I separated things between:
a personal qube (your “true private documents”?)
a pictures qube
one qube per project
a documentation qube (content shared between projects qubes)
Before using Qubes OS, all that data was mixed in my old /home folder. At first, I put it in my personal, then I started copying some parts from the personal qube to other qubes, something while keeping duplicate files before figuring out what to do with them, according to how qubes works.
