How to handle GPG encrypted files with VIM

#gnupg #privacy #vim

I like to write small notes in simple files with vim. Sometimes I want to encrypt these files, so that not everyone can everything read in there. I was looking for a solution and found this.

augroup aencrypted
    au!
    " First make sure nothing is written to ~/.viminfo while editing
    " an encrypted file.
    autocmd BufReadPre,FileReadPre *.asc set viminfo=
    " We don't want a swap file, as it writes unencrypted data to disk
    autocmd BufReadPre,FileReadPre *.asc set noswapfile
    " Switch to binary mode to read the encrypted file
    autocmd BufReadPre,FileReadPre *.asc set bin
    autocmd BufReadPre,FileReadPre *.asc let ch_save = &ch|set ch=2
    autocmd BufReadPost,FileReadPost *.asc '[,']!sh -c "gpg --decrypt 2> /dev/null"
    " Switch to normal mode for editing
    autocmd BufReadPost,FileReadPost *.asc set nobin
    autocmd BufReadPost,FileReadPost *.asc let &ch = ch_save|unlet ch_save
    autocmd BufReadPost,FileReadPost *.asc execute ":doautocmd BufReadPost " . expand("%:r")
    " Convert all text to encrypted text before writing
    autocmd BufWritePre,FileWritePre *.asc '[,']!sh -c "gpg --default-recipient-self -ae 2>/dev/null"
    " Undo the encryption so we are back in the normal text, directly
    " after the file has been written.
    autocmd BufWritePost,FileWritePost *.asc u
augroup END

augroup bencrypted
    au!
    " First make sure nothing is written to ~/.viminfo while editing
    " an encrypted file.
    autocmd BufReadPre,FileReadPre *.gpg set viminfo=
    " We don't want a swap file, as it writes unencrypted data to disk
    autocmd BufReadPre,FileReadPre *.gpg set noswapfile
    " Switch to binary mode to read the encrypted file
    autocmd BufReadPre,FileReadPre *.gpg set bin
    autocmd BufReadPre,FileReadPre *.gpg let ch_save = &ch|set ch=2
    autocmd BufReadPost,FileReadPost *.gpg '[,']!sh -c "gpg --decrypt 2> /dev/null"
    " Switch to normal mode for editing
    autocmd BufReadPost,FileReadPost *.gpg set nobin
    autocmd BufReadPost,FileReadPost *.gpg let &ch = ch_save|unlet ch_save
    autocmd BufReadPost,FileReadPost *.gpg execute ":doautocmd BufReadPost " . expand("%:r")
    " Convert all text to encrypted text before writing
    autocmd BufWritePre,FileWritePre *.gpg '[,']!sh -c "gpg --default-recipient-self --armor -ev 2>/dev/null"
    " Undo the encryption so we are back in the normal text, directly
    " after the file has been written.
    autocmd BufWritePost,FileWritePost *.gpg u
augroup END

Then you can create a new file with vim YOURNOTE.gpg. This will be encrypted when saving and decrypt when opened.