Quick Start Guide

BestCrypt is an advanced system with many functions. This section provides a simple, guided tour of the two most basic BestCrypt
functions -- creating a new container and mounting it -- to give you a gentle introduction to encrypted data storage.

Create a New BestCrypt Container

After you have successfully installed BestCrypt, you'll want to create your first container file. To open the program, locate BestCrypt Control Panel in the Applications. Double click on the icon and you will be greeted by the BestCrypt Control Panel:

To create your first container, you can click either the big button in the center area labeled Create new container or the smaller Create button on the top toolbar. Either of these actions will greet you with the New Container Creation dialog box

All of the options you see in this dialog will be further explained throughout this user guide. For now, you can use all the default values to create your first container. Click the Create button, choose where on your computer to store your new container file and supply a new password for it.

When the creation process completes, you should see your new container displayed in the Control Panel. If you already have a BestCrypt container on your system (perhaps created by BestCrypt for Windows or Linux), you can instead click the Locate button to locate it. In any case, your new container will be added to the container list:

Mount New BestCrypt Container

Now that you have a new container, you'll want your computer to recognize it as a storage device -- a process called "mounting" -- so you can begin filling it with the files you want to protect. Select your new container in the Control Panel and click the Mount button on the toolbar.

BestCrypt will show the Mount dialog box to allow you to change mounting options. Again, these options are covered in more detail in other sections; for now, enter your container password (which you created in Step 1) in the password field and click Ok:

Enter password for the container and click 'Ok'. For the detailed description of all the options available at this dialog box, please read Mounting and Ejecting Containers

BestCrypt will verify your password and create a new removable device mounted from the container file you have just created. You should then see new Files Manager window open to show you your newly mounted container:

Your secret virtual drive is now accessible just like any normal disk drive. Everything you write to the disk will be automatically encrypted; everything you read from it will automatically be decrypted. You can create or copy files on this new disk and they will be safely stored, encrypted, in the container file.

BestCrypt, provides several ways to eject mounted containers:

• The Eject button in the BestCrypt Control Panel toolbar
• The BestCrypt menu, located as an item on the taskbar (This option and the previous one are simply convenient shortcuts to standard removable disk ejecting mechanisms.)
• The Forced Eject button on the Control Panel toolbar (This option works the same way as removing an ordinary thumb drive physically without ejecting it in Files. Ejecting your container this way can possibly damage any files currently opened from the disk, but it is indispensable when you need to urgently remove your mounted containers -- just like when you need to urgently remove your thumb drive.)
• The Eject All button located on the toolbar and in the taskbar menu (This option will do the same as Forced Eject, but instead of ejecting a single container it will remove all currently mounted containers. This option can be activated in Settings, and used with the hot key Cntrl+Shift+E when running control panel.)

See also:

Basic concepts
BestCrypt Control Panel
Strong password guidelines