This article describes how to get started with SharedSafe. Alternatively, you can watch the introduction video “How to share a folder”.

Download and Installation

To get started using SharedSafe, you need first to download our Windows client. Press the big fat download button on the top of this page. The download should start immediately.

After the download is finished, open the file and install SharedSafe.

SharedSafe is started right after the installation, you should see a welcome message and its tray icon in the task bar.

Additionally, a big launcher dialog appears. The launcher may be used as an entry point to SharedSafe, but for this guide, we want to use the shell context menu to interact with SharedSafe. So close the launcher dialog now.

Creating a Safe and linking it to a Folder

To share or sync your files you can either use an existing folder or create a new one.

Now use the folder’s context menu (by pressing the right mouse button over the folder icon):

Select the option “Create Safe and link to Folder”.

You are now presented with a dialog that lets you enter your Email address. Note that an Email address that supports the IMAP protocol is required. For example, Google Mail supports IMAP.

Enter your Email and password, and then press “Probe Email”. If the Email account can be used with SharedSafe, a button “Create safe and link to Folder” appears:

Press the button “Create Safe and link to Folder” to confirm and start the creation of the Safe.

Side note: Creating multiple Safes within one Email account won’t cause conflicts. Technically a new IMAP folder is created for any new Safe.

The folder now shows a blue SharedSafe overlay icon to indicate that it is linked to your Safe.

Now copy some files into the new folder. SharedSafe synchronizes your files in the background and automatically uploads them to your Safe. It shows the upload progress inside the Windows Explorer by overlaying icons. A blue icon indicates that an upload is ongoing, a green one appears when the file is uploaded and in sync with the Safe.

Exporting a Safe Key

SharedSafe stores files AES-256 encrypted. For each new Safe a new encryption key is generated. To share files, the encryption key needs to be sent to the receiver securely.

To export a Safe Key, use the context menu again. This time, a new set of options is shown:

Select “Share Safe…” to make the export dialog appear:

Optionally, you can choose to export a “readonly” Safe Key. Doing so restricts the recipient to read from the Safe only. And to keep the Safe Key protected, you should enter a password.

A number of export options are available. The most obvious one is exporting to a file (Safe Key File). If a Mail Client is installed, an Email with the Safe Key as attachment can be sent (Mail recipient). If Skype is installed, you can directly send the Safe Key through Skype to your friends.

Choose one of the options which works best for you to transfer the Safe Key to the recipient or to another machine.

Importing and linking a Safe Key to a Folder

Now we turn to  the recipient of the Safe Key. At first you need to be sure that SharedSafe is installed on the recipient’s machine, too.

There are two options to get access to the files via a Safe Key. The most direct one is by opening the Safe Key:

Open the Safe Key by double-clicking it to make the import dialog appear:

Here you can select the folder where you want the Safe to be linked with and where the files should be downloaded to. If the entered folder is not yet existing, it will be created.

After the Safe has been probed and imported, click “Link Folder to Safe” to start the synchronization process.

From now on the new folder is “linked” with the Safe. All users of folders that are linked with the same Safe can change, delete and add new files. SharedSafe makes sure that all files are kept in sync in all of the Linked Folders.