Advanced Data Protection
Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) is an optional feature that enhances the privacy of data stored in iCloud by using end-to-end encryption (E2EE). By default, iCloud data is already encrypted, both at rest on Apple’s servers, and in transport on the network –- but using encryption keys that Apple possesses, and can decrypt. This level of security is adequate for most uses, but if you have special privacy requirements, you can enable Advanced Data Protection on your Apple Account to get extra protection.
Starting with version 52, Drafts supports ADP for the content of your drafts.
Table of Contents
Advanced Data Protection and Drafts
Drafts supports ADP by placing the following information in E2EE-compliant encrypted fields:
- The content of drafts.
- The content of draft versions in the version history.
- The log data of action log entries.
With ADP disabled, this makes no difference; with ADP enabled, these fields are encrypted using keys available only on your device and cannot be decrypted by Apple.
Drafts does not set up other metadata, settings, and related values for E2EE – only the content of your drafts.
Feature Availability
ADP support was added to Drafts in version 52.0. Starting with this version, any new activity for the content described above is stored in encrypted fields. This activity includes creating new drafts and editing existing drafts.
To minimize impact on the majority of users, Drafts does not automatically migrate existing cloud data to encrypted fields for activity prior to installing version 52.0 on your devices.
If you use ADP, see the heading below for details on migration of your historic data.
Migrating Historic Sync Data
If you do not use ADP, there’s no reason to migrate older data to encrypted fields; there is no difference in the privacy of your data in this case. If you do use ADP, and have data created prior to the installation of Drafts 52.0, you can visit Settings > Maintenance > Advanced Data Migration > Migration Status to check on your existing data and initiate migration.
In this view, you can see counts of records that have content in iCloud that has not been migrated to E2EE-compliant fields, and you can enable the migration process.
Migration can take some time if you have a large drafts library. In order to avoid impacting performance of the app, the migration process works in the background. In general, it is recommended you only enable migration on one device and allow it to work in batches in the background. You can check back in the migration status screen to see when the process is completed.