You know the drill. Paying monthly for an S3 bucket or Google Drive to hold cold-storage archives you look at once a decade. The cloud is just someone else's computer. YouTube is also someone else's computer, but they let you upload 1080p videos for free.
ytfs securely packs your files or folders into colored static, allowing you to use video hosting platforms as an infinite, free hard drive.
You want to back up a 50MB folder. The industry standard: configure Terraform, set up an AWS S3 bucket, provision IAM user roles, install the AWS CLI, write a sync script, and attach a credit card.
With ytfs:
# Just pack the directory directly!
ytfs pack /path/to/my_folder
- Interactive Terminal UI: Run
ytfswithout arguments to launch a guided, beautiful wizard interface powered byquestionaryandrich. - Folder Packing Support: Pass a directory path, and
ytfsautomatically archives and compresses it on the fly. - Metadata & Verification: Each video contains secure headers containing the original filename, file type, timestamp, and size. You can
inspectorverifyfiles without fully decrypting. - Robust Encoding (8x8 Macro-Blocks): Data is grouped into 8x8 pixel blocks. Even if YouTube blurs the edges, the center of the block remains perfectly readable.
- Binary RGB: Instead of black and white (1 bit), we use pure Red, Green, and Blue channels, securely packing 3 bits per macro-block.
- Built-in AES-128: Your data is encrypted before it becomes a video using PBKDF2 (480,000 iterations) + AES. If a bit flips, you'll know. If someone downloads your video, they just see noise.
- Performance Benchmarks: Run a speed test with the new
benchmarkcommand to check packing and unpacking performance on your system.
Before writing pixels, the engine stops at the core requirements:
1. Generate random 16-byte salt.
2. Prompt for password -> derive AES key.
3. Encrypt file -> calculate exact padding.
4. Pack bytes -> 8x8 RGB chunks.
5. Spit out MP4.
When downloading, it reverses the process, reads the embedded salt, asks for your password, and drops your original files/folders right back on your drive.
Make sure you have ffmpeg installed on your system.
git clone https://github.com/diluteoxygen/ytfs.git
cd ytfs
pip install -e .Running ytfs without arguments opens the interactive menu. You can also run commands directly:
| Command | Arguments | What it does |
|---|---|---|
pack |
<path> |
Encrypts and encodes a file or folder to Output/Packed/<name>.mp4. |
unpack |
<video.mp4> |
Decrypts and unpacks the video back to Output/Unpacked/<name>. |
inspect |
<video.mp4> |
View video metadata (original name, size, compressed state, payload size). |
verify |
<video.mp4> |
Verify password correctness and data integrity without extracting. |
benchmark |
<file> |
Run a local speed test of the encoding and decoding pipeline. |
Note: To download your video back from YouTube without the platform handing you a corrupted mobile format, use yt-dlp:
yt-dlp -f "bestvideo[height=1080][ext=mp4]" <URL>If they figure it out, maybe. But your payload is AES-encrypted. To Google's content ID algorithms, it just looks like 10 minutes of colorful TV static. Don't upload terabytes a day and you'll be fine.
Because you don't need one. A web app requires bypassing CORS restrictions, decoding video frames in JavaScript, and melting your phone's battery. A CLI works today, tomorrow, and in ten years.
No. Type it in (or use the YTFS_PASS environment variable).
Then you have a very colorful, very useless MP4 file. Write it down.