Guides/For a job
Encrypt manuscript drafts before a publisher sees them
A working manuscript is fragile in a way finished books aren't. Elba gives you a sealed folder for drafts, notes, and research that stays on your machine — safe from a stolen laptop or a curious houseguest.
A workspace with a lock on it
One vault per book. Chapters, outlines, character sheets, and the messy research pile all go in. Unlock at the writing desk; re-lock when you close the laptop.
Sending pages to an agent or editor
Export the chapter you're sharing, send it, and re-lock the vault. The unfinished parts never leave the island.
Questions people actually ask
- Does Elba work with Word and Scrivener files?
- Yes — any file type. Scrivener projects are folders; drop the whole thing in.
- Will version control work inside the vault?
- You'd need to unlock to run git. For most writers, dated file names inside the vault are enough.
Take the island
Elba is one HTML file. It runs locally in a Chromium browser, seals a folder with AES-256-GCM, never phones home, and becomes open source on 1 January 2030.
- €49MMXXVI· now ·
- €39MMXXVII2027
- €29MMXXVIII2028
- €19MMXXIX2029
- FreeMMXXX2030
the price falls each year · free to all 1 jan 2030
pay once · no account · nothing leavesRelated guides
- File encryption for writers and novelists
A quiet fence around the manuscript. Elba seals your draft folder locally so the work-in-progress stays yours until you decide.
- Encrypt notes: a quiet vault for people speaking up
For those documenting wrongdoing: a sealed local folder that never contacts a server, on a machine you control. No accounts, no logs.