Encryption increases filesize by 35%

[pheanex]

The documentation says "Encrypting files increases their size by roughly 35%"
Does someone know why this is the case and should it really be like that?

[MorrisJobke]

cc @schiessle @nextcloud/encryption

[jknockaert]

I've often been wondering why that is the case, and I've been thinking that it shouldn't really be like that. But any change here could open a can of worms. When I was working on the encryption wrapper I remember that the block sizes were hardcoded in some places.

[joshtrichards]

It's the base64 encoding:

https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/admin_manual/configuration_files/encryption_details.html#id7

https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.base64-encode.php

Plus a tiny bit for other odds and ends.

[joshtrichards]

And binary was added last year which should mitigate this for people using the newer file structure:

nextcloud/server#32110

Which I hadn't realized.

So... The encryption docs could probably use a refresh (after some testing/verification).