![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/hideout-icon-250x250.webp\"){kind=icon}
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Want to password protect your files in Linux? Here’s a stupid simple app to do the job for beginners.<\/p>\n
There are quite a few ways to secure your data in Linux, e.g., encrypt the whole disk, encrypt a folder, or compress files into encrypted archive.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For individual files, the GPG (GNU Privacy Guard) command line tool is great for the encryption, and the new Hideout graphical front-end make it easy to use for beginners.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/hideout-encryption.webp\")
<\/a>Hideout<\/p><\/div>\n
As you see in the screenshot, simply launch the app, select file (or drag’n’drop file into app window), choose encrypt or decrypt, input passphrase, and click start.<\/p>\n
It will make a copy of the original input file into new encrypted As mentioned, the app is based on GPG, the free open-source tool that many Linux Distributions use for signing software repositories, and Email Clients (e.g., Thunderbird) use it for end-to-end encryption and and digital signatures.<\/p>\n It by default uses AES256<\/b> cipher algorithm for passphrase based encryption in all current Ubuntu releases. It’s very secure as long as your passphrase is long and strong enough.<\/p>\n And, advanced users may use the commands below instead to encrypt or decrypt files.<\/b><\/p>\n Both commands will pop-up a dialog ask to input your passphrase.<\/p>\n For choice, add The source of the app is available in Github via this page<\/a>.<\/p>\n For Ubuntu, it provides official snap package<\/b> (so far only for modern Intel\/AMD platform) that can be easily installed from either App Center or Ubuntu Software.<\/p>\n NOTE: The snap package so far has a conflict to AppArmor, try Flatpak or install snap in dev mode via the command below:<\/b><\/p>\n Linux Mint and Fedora Workstation can install the app from either Software Manager or GNOME Software through the official Flatpak package<\/a><\/strong> (support both While, other Linux Distributions may do the steps below one by one to install the Flatpak package:<\/p>\n.gpg<\/code> file, though you may rename it to whatever name with whatever extension. After that, share that encrypted file to your friends or upload to the cloud, and only the ones who have the passphrase can decrypt then read the file content.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n
gpg --symmetric input_file<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n
gpg --output output_file --decrypt input_file.gpg<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
--batch --pinentry-mode loopback --passphrase \"your_passphrase\"<\/code> flags before --symmetric<\/code> or --decrypt<\/code> to tell the passphrase within the command, which may be useful for server use.<\/p>\nHow to Install Hideout<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nsudo snap install hideout --devmode<\/pre>\n
amd64<\/code> and arm64<\/code>\/aarch64<\/code>).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n