Storing passwords as plain text...no, wait

08 Aug, 2014 • 395 words • 2 min • updated 18 Feb, 2026

⚠️ This post is over one year old. It may no longer be up to date or relevant. Opinions may have changed.

Background #

Sometimes we might need to store some sensible information as plain text. By plain text I mean using no fancy stuff or third-party programs: the information should be easily retrievable via a terminal or a text editor. So, what we can do in this scenario? One such option is to create a my_secret_file.txt then populate it with your important data. Of course, you’ll be saving it in your Desktop folder, where everyone with access to your computer/account will be able to read it, right? No! I have to confess I once did it (with the exception of the Desktop part…of course, a folder such as Documents/passwords doesn’t help either). Nothing too much important, but it was a password, damn. So, as we value more our data, we find a KISS way to complete the same task.

Show me the code…er, the way #

In this post I’m documenting how to use Emacs + GNU PG + Org-mode to encrypt your sensible information. Warning: I do not recommend to store your passwords this way, because it is annoying to keep retrieving frequent used information from a text editor; this method should be used only when you need to store passwords you won’t be retrieving too much. Does it looks reasonable? Okay, so let’s proceed. Here are the requirements list:

Emacs 23+
Org-mode (should be shipped by default with a recent emacs, if not, access orgmode.org)
GNU PG — I’m also assuming you already have a gpg key. If not, see my previous posts (1), (2), for example.

All of those are easily obtained in a Linux or *BSD machine. If you are on Windows, Emacs can be easily installed with chocolatey, but I’m not sure about GPG, you should try this yourself. Now, you should add something like this to your .emacs file:

     lisp
     
   
(require 'org-crypt)
(org-crypt-use-before-save-magic)
(setq org-tags-exclude-from-inheritance '("crypt"))
(setq org-crypt-key "A905373C")

The only line you should change is the last one: you should reference your GPG Key instead of mine. If you don’t know what this means, you should read more about OpenPGP. Now, I’m showing you the results via a mini screencast: https://asciinema.org/a/11355 Notice this encrypted information could be shared on the web; but nobody would be able to decrypt it without your private PGP key. Just use the :crypt: tag for the entries you want to have encrypted; that’s it.