Encryption Password Limits

[jwegienk 1]

Given the recent news surrounding EN's privacy policy changes (although they have dialed them back since), I have been looking in to using encryption within my notes for the first time. Personally, I don't keep much confidential information in EN, but I do use it as a daily journal, so I would prefer to have that information private.

My question is in regards to the encryption of text within a note. When I choose to encrypt a note, it prompts me for a password. So for note 1, I enter an encryption password.

Now, when I go to encrypt text in note 2, I can enter the same password as note 1, or I can enter a new password for note 2 that is different than note 1 (this is not recommended by EN).

My question: Is there a limit to how many unique encryption passwords I am allowed to have? Could I conceivably use a different encryption password for every note? All 100k of them that I am allowed as a user? Or will I eventually run in to trouble somewhere with this?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[gazumped 11,661]

Hi.  I don't believe there's any published information on the number of different passwords you could use,  but it seems impractical to me to use more than a few unless you embed a link with each note to include a password hint.  The fact that Evernote include a "not recommended" warning may be a hint that it's a bad idea to get more creative. 

You'd have to contact support directly if you can,  or message them on Twitter for more on that...

[DTLow 5,736]

12 hours ago, jwegienk said:

My question: Is there a limit to how many unique encryption passwords I am allowed to have? Could I conceivably use a different encryption password for every note? All 100k of them that I am allowed as a user? Or will I eventually run in to trouble somewhere with this?

I'm not sure there's a limit
Supposedly, Evernote does not keep your encryption passwords

as per @Gazumped, I would run into trouble remembering all the passwords.
My approach would be to use the same password, slightly salted for each note

Just curious, Why are you doing this uniquely for notes

[jwegienk 1]

Thanks for the replies. I contacted EN via chat and they confirmed there are no technical limits to the number of encryption passwords. You could conceivably have a unique one for every note. 

The reason I'm interested is because I've started to use EN as a personal journal. I want to encrypt each note, but it terrifies me that if a password shared between notes is compromised, I'd have to change/delete/rewrite each note individually. Your suggestion is basically what I'm doing - each password shares a similar structure, salted with some info in the note title/tags that differentiates them. 

[gazumped 11,661]

Nice idea actually...  It also means you could allow someone access to one shared encrypted note without necessarily giving access to all of a notebook.  Good for "layered" security access...