this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2025
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How to view and edit photos on windows without leaving a trace? (lemmy.zip)
submitted 2 months ago by lotharmatthaeus@lemmy.zip to c/windows@sopuli.xyz
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I would like to do the following on my windows (10 or 11) computer:

  • Move photos from an SD card into a mounted veracrypt volume.
  • Edit photos inside the veracrypt volume using RawTherapee.
  • View the edited photos inside the veracrypt volume.

I would like that whenever I unmount the veracrypt volume, there is no trace of the photo files left on the computer.

I already noticed that the "recent files" feature of windows explorer stores the path name and a thumbnail of a picture that was opened with photo viewer for example. That is not good.

Are there other pitfalls like this I need to watch out for?

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[โ€“] owenfromcanada@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It might be overkill, but if you want absolutely no trace, you could create a separate Windows VM to do that work in. Other than some trace of your SD card having been connected, you're not likely to have any evidence left on your host OS.

You could keep the VM in the encrypted volume if you have space, or you could delete it when you're done (and even scrub the file system after if you're paranoid).

Have fun editing your nudes! (j/k... unless...)

[โ€“] lotharmatthaeus@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 months ago

Thanks! Putting everything into a VM is actually a nice idea. Then I would just need to encrypt the hard disk file of that VM, and things should be simple. It creates a larger file though, but that is probably manageable.