How to most easily encrypt text files on OS X to keep them at least a small step away from plain text? Here's a post on Encrypted text files on Mac OS X:

I finally stumbled onto a very simple solution tonight, vim. Vim is a text editor that was originally developed as vi for the Unix platform and has somehow managed to stave off death for over 30 years despite it’s draconian user interface. Amongst all the improvements and extensions over the years is the :X command. This encrypts the file you are working on with a password of your choosing.


Obviously using FileVault might be a better solution for what that guy wanted, but VIm seems a neat, very quick solution (and we'll ignore his "draconian" comment. And his misuse of "it's" ;^D). Though as that blogger is told in his comments, the VIm Wiki says that...

The algorithm used is breakable. A 4 character key in about one hour, a 6 character key in one day (on a Pentium 133 PC). This requires that you know some text that must appear in the file. An expert can break it for any key.


A 133! Heh. But it's all about barriers to entry. I wouldn't put classified info in a VIm encrypted file, but something you don't want someone playing on your computer to read just by opening, sure. Do note that the beginning of the file is "VimCrypt", which seems to sorta punch a hole in its usefulness.

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