Espionage for Mac3.7.3

Before I rely on a company to encrypt my data, the one problem I have is will that company be there 10 years from now? Will their software still be compatible with Mac OS 10.22? Or is this a fly by night company that will leave your data suddenly unusable years from now? I don't know yet. So I'm standing pat and watching this company. Does Espionage allow you to manage Sparse Encrypted Disk Images like Knox does? I would be very interested and probably buy it if it did. If the company croaks, at least Mac OS can decrypt the disk images.

A rather innocent and stupid question: I am using espionage 3 to encrypt my sensible data. When i am backing up my data with time machine, the encrypted espionage folders are not backed up like the rest of my non-encrypted-folders... Right? How can i include my espionage folders in the time-machine-backup on my mac? Thanks

Important: Starting in 3.6.3, we've dropped support for 10.7, 10.8, and 10.9 because all of these operating systems are insecure. Please see our blog post for further details about this: https://www.taoeffect.com/blog/2016/02/espionage-3-6-3-drops-10-7-10-8-10-9-sparklegate-fix/

Looks like nice software, but... no support for encrypted folders on network volumes. Most of my data resides on a centralised shared network, so cannot use Espionage for it... If it would have supported any volume, I might purchase a license.

Beware that if you want to open the encrypted files anywhere else other than the the mac you installed it on, you need to copy some hidden essential database files over as well. There are no warnings or reminder that you need to backup this database file if you ever lose the mac or want to recover the encrypted files. If you go to the forums of this app you'll see that there are tons of people who have lost their important files because of this very reason. The design of this part of the app is poor in my opinion. Hopefully you have a backup somewhere that isn't encrypted but that pretty much defeats the purpose of having this app..

What's really holding me back from using Espionage regularly is the lack of an iOS client. I would love to use this to protect my DropBox folder, but until I can access those files in iOS, it is less useful to me. I appreciate the advantages to using this on my computer, and I own a copy, but I find I don't use it as I might because of this lack.

I have been using Espionage from former version 2 to protect my data from prying eyes and I found version 3 over the top (at least from when it has left the App Store! :-). It implements in a flawless way the encrypted vaults available with Mac OS X and automates easily their use. The plausible deniability is excellent. The program is excellent. The best available on Mac.

Hello, I have been using Espionage for a couple of years with great satisfaction: simple, efficient, perfect. Now recently I had to migrate from one computer to another and needed support to find my encrypted files again. I got an amazing, personal, one on one support that I only wish I did get when I deal with big companies!!! So I have only praises to sing for this software and big thanks for their support again!

@MacUpdate staff clicking the image for Espionage currently loads an iframe showing the latest App Updates and not the image for Espionage.

I'm uninstalling Espionage 3 and reverting to Espionage 2 as I really dislike the way version 3 operates. From being asked to enter the unlock password at login, to the way it unlocks the folders, etc. I think version 2 is so much more transparent.

Not a comment but a question; might this offer an option to set up a secondary, "under duress" password that will, when entered, prompt Espionage destroy a key or small bit of data to render said data instantly useless?

Truecrypt is more rigorously audited.

I have been using Espionage over the last 3 years and it has been a good reliable app. As most of other users, I am always worrying when using a third party software to take care of such critical data as, for instance, emails. No doubt, Espionage does the job efficiently. Sadly, Lion and more recent OSX releases don't help to make it as easy to use as it was previously. But most importantly, the app is one thing, the service is another and on that side, Espionage deserves 5 stars. I recently had an issue and the support answered my need extremely fast, kindly (on a Saturday) and efficiently. And support is key to me for a security application: congratulation guys, and thanks for the work done!

Meh. A step backwards from Espionage v2 and not nearly as useful.

For my purposes, Espionage has been a good reliable app. All I really want to do is keep sensitive documents well out of reach of anyone who gains access to my computer. My only complaint is that it doesn't hide the folder mountpoint. Rather than attempting to come up with innocuous folder names, I just hide the folder with another program. Of course, when I do that, Espionage tells me that the mountpoint is missing until I unhide the folder. Kind of irritating, but I can live with it.

notifications NOT WORKING with ML notification system!! only built in option works as it should, also initial login is slow as balls and spins endlessly and takes forever to unlock only 4 encrypted folders i have set to auto unlock. Also sometimes,once out of every 3 restarts of my computer then after entering the initial master password, 2 menubar icons appear in the menu bar as if 2 separate espionage apps were running at the same time. this used to happen before until i forced an uninstall of the older ispy.kext file,now its happening again. disgusting!Same bugs as before even with the latest update. how did the developers manage to screw up this awesome program so much ever since the 3.0 update? the older versions of espionage were faster,worked flawlessly and never caused any errors or problems. [comment edited for obscene language... please be civil]

Seems to work fine up to and including Lion. On Mountain Lion it will not let me eject external drives. They both ejected fine (Firewire and USB) until I used Espionage to lock some folders on them. I have now totally removed Espionage 3 and still the drives will not eject or dismount. So far I have not been able figure out what is running when the drives are connected and then dismounted, which of course they refuse to do.

Has conflicts with DrivePulse/Drive Genius. Have been trialling Espionage 3 and just couldn't get it to work i.e. almost every folder I dropped to be encrypted a got an error message saying 'resource in use', or something like that. I've sent an email to support but in the mean time have discovered that it has issues with Drive Pulse. The only work around is to turn Drive Pulse off, encrypt the folder then turn Drive Pulse on. Not very satisfactory if you're a Drive Pulse user. They have known about this issue for sometime now, 2011 at least, but no fix. This is just a heads up for everyone and not a critical review hence the stars. If it wasn't for this problem I would have trialled it a bit longer. Link to Drive Pulse issue on Espionage forum: http://www.taoeffect.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=370&p=1243#p1243

Hi, Purchased the app from App Store. It is still version 3.0.0. How come it is not updated? And where can I get the new one?

Espionage 3 is a BIG step back from version 2: they removed all cool features present in older version, application control, folder password protection and they step in AppStore, this means waiting for crucual updates (like the 3.0.1 that should fix encryption in system folders). It is more a downgrade, in my opinion...

Great piece of software. I bought it this morning after i watched a video on YouTube that went through all the various features. What sold me was the plausible deniability option! http://youtu.be/FHStJaeOH1w

I was a big fan of the original version of Espionage, and then again so with version 2. But I'm having trouble understanding what real (with the elimination of the "application association" feature) value this application now has over just creating encrypted disk images within Apple's Disk Utility. You still end up opening the encrypted data image, and then launching the application. Anybody?

As a registered user of Espionage 2 I'm really anxious to try Espionage 3.0 but the upgrade price policy of Tao Effect makers me hesitate. Tao offers a 50% discount on the full price until June 4th, but I need more time to try Espionage and I want a discounted upgrade price for registered users that lasts at least a year after commercial release of Espionage 3.0. IMO that's how to treat existing users right.

IMPORTANT to users who already had the earlier version of espionage installed and want to update correctly!!! Do NOT just mount the new version and replace the original,it will not automatically work perfectly in unison with the old versions settings,if you do that you will have two instances of espionage running (menu items) at the same time,the new one with no folders added to it and the old with the existing folders and passwords as before but no way to remove or restore the old folders to use with the newest version!! MORONS THEY ARE!! you must FIRST open your existing older version of espionage and manually restore/remove each folder you had previously encrypted with the older version taking note of which ones were locked and unlocked based on your auto unlock settings. I would suggest making a screenshot while the menu is displaying the locked and unlocked folders for future reference with the next step! Next after removing and restoring ALL of the encrypted folders you had previously working properly with the older version of espionage. Now uninstall the older application completely! Next mount and install the latest version of espionage(3.0) Then proceed to manually add/encrypt folders you had from before with the older version(this is where the screenshot will help you remember which folders you had encrypted before and also which ones were set to auto unlock and so forth. Finally if you were a lifetime customer,they should have emailed you with the license registration file,make a backup somewhere on your drive or external drive and follow their instructions to activate your license. Why didn't they simply have a way to update the existing app as before rather than doing it this way with an entirely new application process??? and if that was the only safe way to do it,why the hell didn't they tell existing users how to update properly to retain/maintain all of the existing folders they and already had configured properly???? Unbelievable how developers never test their products first in popular scenarios or are smart enough to include crucial information to help the customers who don't know jack about computers??? ps- You're welcome.

Bouht it as part of a bundle. Kept getting login errors when it 'failed to connect to iSpy server'. Got tired of same, decided Espionage was more trouble than it was worth ... uninstalled it. No more login errors. Joy is mine. If I'd actually used it, I suppose my mileage would have been different.

A good app that truly protects your data. One big annoyance though is that it doesn't indicate in any way that your private folders are actually open. With more of us not shutting down our computers for days at a time, this is a pretty glaring oversight. Especially as the interaction is through a menu item, it could easily indicate this (like Dropbox).

What a great app, would love it to be part of a MUPromo or bundle.

I was using Knox, which is fine. But Espionage is a more realistic solution and perfectly implemented. Love it.

It would be nice if someone would come up with an app that allows MacOS X encrypted diskimages to be exchanged with WIndows users.

I have used both Knox and Espionage, and both are easy to use and work well. Espionage allows encryption for on-the-fly encryption of folders or disks without creating a disk image. This works better for many situations, such as encrypting you mail or documents folder. Tech support was very responsive, and answered my issue within hours. They had already issued a fix for the problem in a new version.

I bought an earlier version as part of a bundle and found that after setting up espionage I was getting lots of file errors from my Drive Genius DrivePulse monitor. I repaired the directory using DiskWarrior and things would be ok for a while and then I'd get the errors again. I finally de-activated Espionage and my errors have gone away. I'm using a Seagate Momentus Hybrid XT 500 GB HD in my MacBook Pro 17" (now 2.53 i5) 8 GB RAM, 10.6.7 I updated Espionage to the most recent version and will give it another try.

The software works flawlessly & totally as hoped. The real test these days is in the service response. I had made a dumb mistake that wrecked my secure Espionage folder completely. Sent for help with explanation about 10 pm. Early the next morning there was a specific, step by step reply. That triggered a followup which occurred still ... that same day. They were diagnosing my system and giving further instructions to complete the recovery. Two more very prompt email replies and I was "FIXED" Today, that reader... is super support for a great app. Buy it!

I moved over to Mac and found out there wasn't much available for security. Searched extensively and tried out different solutions. Espionage became my choice because of the quality, price and service. Of course I need a good product and affordable, but most importantly - given the critical importance of security, I need peace of mind, which comes from knowing that if I ever need help the company is there for me. I can guarantee from direct experience that in this aspect espionage score a 5 stars too, they love their job and they care for their costumers. Keep safe

Fantastic app; does exactly what one would want it to without trying to be 'too much.' I preferred it to Knox and other alternatives. The ability to whitelist & blacklist apps from the preferences menu or on-the-fly is a game-changing win!

Really good piece of software, fast & secure !

A "must have" application. Easy to use and powerful.

Do not try to uninstall this by dragging it the trash. Use the uninstall menu command within the program. I didn't and it found my console log filled with messages about tao.effect, Espionage, and iSpy.

MacUpdate has their bundle on sale through today which includes 1Password. MacZot has Espionage on sale for 1/2 price today but says that 1Password and Knox (like Espionage) will go on sale for %40 off tomorrow (Dec 24) through Dec 26th. It seems odd that MacZot would sell two apps (Espionage & Knox) back to back. I haven’t ever used Espionage or Knox and I wonder if someone/anyone (Bueller?) can tell me the pros and cons of each and which is better and why. If so I’d appreciate it very much. I could update 1Password from version 2 to version 3 for $25. Or I could buy the $50 MacUpdate bundle w/ 1Password and then buy Espionage today at MacZot for $17.48 (50% off). Or I could wait until tomorrow and get a new 1Password version 3 plus Knox for $45. 1PW is $40 and Knox is $35 so 40% off of $75 would mean I could get them both for $45. So that’d be like paying the $25 upgrade fee to go from 1PW 2 to 1PW 3 and then paying $20 for Knox. But getting Espionage today is only $17.48 so only $2.50 cheaper than Knox–basically the same price. So it boils down to which one is better. Argh! Too many choices. Any ideas/thoughts on Espionage vs Knox as an encryption tool? Thanks.

I can say the program is very good.

App works well and is fully seamless. Yes there are other methods to accomplish the same thing this app does. It's not about being the only choice, its about doing so seamlessly, which this app does. I'm able to encrypt applications and never think twice about it. If I need to run an app I'm instantly prompted with a password prompt. If I cancel the prompt, the app stops loading. If I enter my password, the app's data is unlocked and the app completes loading. When I quit the app, the apps data is instantly locked... Using disk images I would need to worry about manually mounting the disk BEFORE I try to run the app. In some cases forgetting to do this might break the app's connection to the data (causing a need to modify the apps preferences to restore the connection to the data). Once I quit the app I would need to manually unmount the image to ensure the data was encrypted. Espionage handles all this without even thinking about it...

This application may work just fine but where is the difference to encrypted dmg? There is no need to use filefault to encrypt the whole home folder. You can add as many encrypted dmg files as you like. Just open Apple's disk utility and create a new 500mb dmg file for whatever you like. This dmg than even work from an USB device on any Mac as this is a BUILD IN OS X FEATURE...

How does Espionage work with backups, like Time Machine and CrashPlan? My understanding is that Time Machine backs up RAM images which are unencrypted. Thanks!

I've been using this software for about 5 months. It has solved my security worries in an easy way. As I carry a MBP with sensitive data, I had no other choice, but to use FileVault (FV). The problem with that is that FV encrypts your entire home folder, with the big speed compromise. In case you use app with intensive harddisk use, you will get into troubles (for example GarageBand or FinalCut). You could move those files outside your home directory, but that means reorganize the way I use my computer, and I did not want that. Espionage lets you encrypt only the folders you want in the same way FV does (encrypted Apple disk images) in a way you usually wont even notice there are encrypted. It also comes with some application templates to help you encrypt, for example, all your Mail in a single step (it knows the folders needed to be encrypted and selects them automatically). The other VERY important thing is with backups. Espionage comes with some integration with TimeMachine , to block the backup of the protected folders and provide a more efficient way to backup them (More info about this on their web page). For now, it has been good enough for me. It also works with Dropbox. Support it's also very good and fast. Recommended in case you need to encrypt some folders and can't compromise the loose of harddrive speed of your entire home volume. Is this is not your case, FV could be just fine. Regards.

Encrypted disk images created by MacOS X may not be secure.

Excellent app for all it's purposes! Perhaps more importantly, it's also backed with exceptionally splendid support - a lead model to other developers. Thank you, Tao Effect!

This is my first review - and no, I'm not the developer nor his brother-in-law. I just liked this app enough to write a review. I tried a couple of free apps but they didn't do quite what I wanted without a lot of futzing around (or at all), usually with a clumsy un-Mac-like interface. However, Espionage (not the most appropriate name in the world, BTW) does a good job of encrypting/decrypting folders quickly and simply, plus it password protects other programs. I use it to password-protect Mail - an unexpected feature that I really appreciate on a laptop. The price is a bit steep but not excessive, especially given what it does for my security, and the developer seems to actively support his product, unlike some other, older apps out there. All in all, I'm pleased with the program and consider it money well spent.

This app is quite useful for LOSING DATA. I only unlock my few Espionage folders when i need them. I'm a heavy "Default Folder" user and i have attempted to save data to an encrypted folder from an Open/Save dialog when unsure if i've formally unlocked it. I don't know if it's related to Default Folder (or maybe it's just using open/save dialog in general) but saving data to an encrypted folder while it is locked doesn't necessarily cause Espionage to demand the unlocking password or the dialog to complain. The saved file(s) go off to la-la land (meaning, god only know where). If one isn't extremely careful in all dealings with an espionage folder, it's very easy to get it detached from it's reference in the app/unlocking mechanism, and have nasty things happen to it leading to complete loss of the data. I reviewed the documentation and tried various things to no avail. Either the process doesn't quite work as advertised, or it needs to be made more straight forward and reliable. All I really know is the loss was related to one or more of the following: renaming the folder, moving the folder, saving from a standard OS X dialog (possibly while it was locked). I was fortunate in that while i wanted to keep the data from prying eyes, it wasn't national secrets or anything of serious importance.

Already left a review. New version is nice. Really like the ability to move and rename folders. Thanks, an already excellent program even better.

I used espionage to lock a folder inside my picture folder. but every time i open up new finder window using command+N it asks for password for encrypted folder and tries to open it which i did not want to do any idea?

This is OK for protection against casual snooping, but it has the same drawback as FileVault: data can "leak" out of the encrypted disk image to unencrypted parts of the storage device. For example, whenever you print a document, and that includes converting it to PDF, a temporary file is created outside your home directory with the contents of that document. Data that you think are encrypted can also be found in cache files and temporary files in various places. At a minimum, be sure to enable virtual memory encryption in the Security preference pane (that's part of the OS, not this application.) For serious security, there's no alternative to whole-disk encryption.

This is one of the more friendly applications I have used,. Even though I find the inner workings a bit inscrutable, actually using it is a breeze. One of the great things about it is being able to encrypt files associated with applications. Consider that you even if you have a good password for your computer login, someone with an install disk can simply boot from that and change the password, rendering all your files, email, and browser passwords vulnerable. I have occasionally hit a glitch with taking files out of encryption, but the program sends up a warning, with a help file telling me what to do, and no data is ever lost.

I have been a very satisfied user of Espionage for quite some time now, and basically think it is an excellent application. But lately it has been behaving rather oddly. Today I sought to launch one of my many image-editing applications, (Canon Digital Photo Professional), and Espionage launched itself and told me that it needed my password. The image-editing application is in no way locked, and is certainly not in any way encrypted by Espionage - so why is this happening ? Since then, I have noticed the same strange behaviour by Espionage when I try to launch other applications too. Not all applications, but lots of other ones that are also totally ulnocked and not in any way encrypted. Has anyone experienced this ? To what may it be due ? How do I stop Espionage from launching itself and interfering in relation to my opening and launching non-encrypted files and applications ? It is a real nuisance. I am using a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac 7.1, running MacOSX 10.5.8.

Will espionage run on snow leopard?

Works great on my mac with snow leopard (10.6.1) You have done a great job!

How do you use this to encrypt your email?

This is a great tool backed by a terrific developer. I use it to secure client files on my laptop. It allows me to encrypt only what I need secured, and then access it on the fly. Especially useful if the ability to connect applications and folders - this lets me encrypt my email and the separate Mail downloads folder all at once. When I ran into a problem getting it set up (and couldn't access any of my data because I'd gotten ahead of myself), the developer responded to my email with clear instructions. Within an hour. At night. It's the best customer support I've encountered with any product or service, bar none.

Espionage does what it promises to do in a very efficient and unobtrusive way; as Jo said, it works flawlessly and is out of your way if you don't need it. It works swiftly and the notifications through Growl keeps you updated what happens. The possibility to associate applications to folders is very helpful and minimises the effort for the user using encrypted data. As Jo I had a small issue too and mailed the developers using their support website. I can confirm Jo's experience: I got a very polite, prompt and, more important, a efficent and elaborate reply. Greg, one of the Tao Effect guys, has send me a script which fixed my problem immediately. Btw, it wasn't Espionage which caused the problem; a maintenance tool had changed some permissions, and Greg figured that out from the log file I had sent with my first email; he fixed the problem by return.

This application does what it promises very elegantly in an superbly easy and effortless way. Took me less than 1/2 hour to cpmprehend what needs to be understood about the app. Thereafter its operated as simply as the Finder. Works flawlessly and is totally out of your way if you don't need it. Folders are encrypted fast and reliable and briskly decrypted when needed. Had a small issue and mailed the devs and got a very polite and elaborate reply at the speed of light. 5 stars +

I've been in an email exchange with the developer who walked me through a problem I had. He was extremely helpful, patient and quick to reply to my emails. Top marks for customer service. This app allows me to do something I could never figure out before - password protect my email in Mail App. I definitely recommend this app for the paranoid among you or those who are interested in securing their important files. The tag says that this app replaces FileVault but I disagree. This blows FileVault away! I have never had anything but problems with FileVault; one of the worst apps that Apple ever made in my opinion.

I downloaded this application last night to try it out, had issues with Moneydance not re-locking it's data folder upon an application quit . . and the developer resolved the issue overnight. Now that's service! I registered immediately. Thank you to the developer for a wonderful program and an incredible response to issues.

I have just downloaded this latest version of Espionage, but it refuses to install correctly. (i have a paid-for licensed version of Espionage 2.0.1 at present). When I drag the icon of the downloaded version 2.0.2 into my "Applications" folder I get the following pop-up "error" message:- "The operation cannot be completed because the item "Growl" is in use". In fact, I do NOT have "Growl" installed on my computer at all, so I have no idea whatsoever what this error message is trying to tell me. My Mac is an iMac 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, running Mac OSX Version 10.5.6. Mr Developer ? Any suggestions ?

This is head and shoulders above other security apps out there. The kind of app it makes you glad you've got a Mac. I had a couple of issues, dropped the guys an email and they got straight back to be and resolved them. For such a new app, this really shows big promise, and a bargain too.

I just updated to version 2 and I'm very happy with the new features. The upgrade price is certainly fair ($5 at this time). I initially had a little trouble with an error & the author/developer is incredibly responsive. He began troubleshooting within minutes of my initial email and the problem was solved immediately.

If you don't see the updated site, it's because it's recently been moved to a new machine and the DNS entry hasn't propagated to you yet, but you can still go to it directly: http://67.205.56.102/espionage/

I can't get it to install. It keeps giving me an error message. I restarted my computer, as it suggested, and I get the same result. I tried installing it from the folder that opened with the dmg file; and I tried dragging that dmg file to my Applications folder to install. Same result (or lack thereof). I have my drive partioned into two drives; that's the only thing I can think of that would be weird. But I don't think that should be a problem with this. I can't buy it if I can't try it.

I want to be able to encrypt my entire Library folder as it contains many pieces of information I'd like to be secret. Does Espionage handle this well?

I would like to uninstall Espionage, but the option in its Menu is grayed out. Anyone knows how to activate it?

To the Dev: Haven't tried it but I think you might consider changing the name a privacy app that is essentially named "Spy" is kinda creepy at worst and non-descriptive at best. Cheers,