Guides/USB
A portable encryption tool that fits on a USB drive
A portable encryption tool has to run without installing, without admin rights, and without leaving crumbs on the host machine. Elba is a single HTML file plus a small launcher — a few hundred kilobytes on a USB stick.
Setup on a stick
Copy Elba.html and the launcher to your USB drive. Put the folder you want sealed next to them. That's the whole install.
Plug the stick into any Windows, Mac, Linux, or Chromebook machine with a Chromium browser and Elba runs.
Crumbs left behind
Elba writes nothing outside the folder you seal. When you unplug the stick, the host machine has no memory of the file having been opened, beyond the browser's normal recent-tabs list — which you can clear.
Questions people actually ask
- Does it need admin rights on the host?
- No. A standard user account is enough.
- What if the USB stick is lost?
- The sealed folder is useless without your password. Keep the password separate from the stick.
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 with no installation required
Portable, install-free file encryption. Elba is a single HTML file — no admin rights, no installer, no leftovers on the machine.
- How to encrypt files on Windows without admin rights
Locked-down work laptop? Elba is a single HTML file — no installer, no admin prompt, no registry keys.
- Single-HTML-file encryption: why one file is the feature
One HTML file, one folder, one password. Why Elba's single-file design is a security property, not a limitation.