Genuinely impressed by VaultExplorer - would love to hear the story behind it!

[ParadigmX-Lab]

Hi R0b0To,

I found VaultExplorer a couple of weeks ago and it genuinely impressed me. I'd used an app before for opening VeraCrypt containers on Android, and honestly it was awful - clunky, unreliable, felt half-abandoned. I've also used the official Cryptomator app, and it's rough by comparison - VaultExplorer feels like it's on a different level entirely, both in scope and polish.

Six container formats, a full file explorer with built-in viewers, a vault camera, an encrypted item vault, USB OTG - all in one native app, no root, no INTERNET permission at all, released for free under GPLv3.

What honestly blows my mind even more is the development pace. Looking at the release history, you went from v0.95 to v1.4 in about three weeks, with releases landing every few days and hundreds of commits between them. Shipping that much - native C++ crypto engine, six container formats, a full file manager, built-in media/PDF viewers, a password vault, sync and repair tools - at that speed, apparently solo, is honestly hard to wrap my head around. That kind of output is rare even for a team.

If you ever get the time, I'd love to read the story behind the project - what got you started, why open source and free rather than a paid app, and a bit about yourself as a developer. A blog post, a README section, or even a longer write-up in a Discussion thread would be great.

Either way, thank you for this. Truly impressive work! 🙂

[R0b0To]

Haha, are you a journalist or just curious?

There’s not much more to say. You pretty much nailed the reason yourself. I just wasn't satisfied with what was available on Android. It’s been stagnant for years, and I really believe we deserve a solid vault tool that isn't paywalled for basic functionality (not even asking for fancy stuff).

The project started out very basic: just VeraCrypt and zero internet access. It relies on a ton of open-source libraries, so making this free is kind of my way of returning the favor to the people who built them.

It's also no secret that I use AI for development, and I’ve tried to take suggestions from early users with an open mind. A big reason I can still oversee everything is because the architecture is designed to be really modular at every layer. As a solo dev, pulling off a project this big in such a short time would’ve been literally impossible otherwise. Doing all of this from scratch by hand would take years, and no sane person would even entertain that idea. That said, it’s still taken a ton of work to get to this point!

[ParadigmX-Lab]

Haha, not a journalist - just someone who's genuinely thrilled this exists and is being actively developed. I can't get over it.

Thanks for being so open about it, by the way - the AI-assisted workflow and the modular architecture answer exactly explains how you pulled off something this size solo in such a short time. Makes a lot more sense now.

It's funny - it made me realize all the pieces were basically already out there: the open-source libraries, the file formats, the tools. What was missing was someone who could actually sit down, think through the architecture properly, and pull it all together into one coherent thing. You did that, and honestly it solved the last real gap I had - and I'd bet a lot of other people's too. Really grateful for the work you've put into this.

Hope more people get pulled into the project going forward - an active community and continued support from you matter a lot for something like this to keep going. 🥹

[docfastweb]

I must admit, I had roughly the same list of questions. ))

I also suspected that AI was involved, but as an “assistant,” it still requires particularly careful attention to the results.

What I would especially like to emphasize, however, is that the application is impressive in terms of its scope and the depth with which its overall concept has been thought through. It’s quite simply an ocean of logic and common sense! This is exactly how I imagined the ideal solution: a thorough, ambitious concept without any compromises. And something like that can only emerge from a well-organized and highly developed intellect.

Once again, bravo! Such a broad range of objectives, already at the level of the concept and overall architecture, would be impossible without clear developer talent. The more deeply I delve into the details of the application, the more delighted I become - and the more reasons I find to be in a wonderful mood. Thank you!

[GooseL]

@R0b0To
Bro, although you said you don't plan to develop the PC version at the moment, since AI is involved, it would be nice to make a PC version in the future if there's time. Please do it! Crypt is too slow on the PC! Since it's written in JAVA, it takes several seconds to open!