Send your tax documents with total privacy

Every tax season this question comes up, how do I send my files safely and securely. Let me demonstrate a simple way to encrypt your files before sending to your tax provider on mac using command line.

Lets assume all my documents to send are in folder 2026_tax_docs. To password protect simply zip them with -e option.

tapolo@mb.local:~/Downloads/2016_tax_docs$zip amish_secure.zip * -e
Enter password:
Verify password:
adding: Amish_2016_W2 (deflated 12%)
adding: Bank_1099_INT_2016.pdf (deflated 12%)
tapolo@Amishs-MacBook-Pro.local:~/Downloads/2016_tax_docs$

Image below of the console.

That’s it, now you can send your zip file using any of your favorite email or file sharing service. Just make sure you send the password through a different channel. Secure messaging service like signal is best.

If you don’t want to manually go through this trouble you can also use online file sharing services like DropSecure They have a free version that will work just fine.