Decrypt AIP protected .PFILE media files

Question

Decrypt AIP protected .PFILE media files

Aikidoo 0

Hi there,

recently I moved some of my media files(mostly images), of which some were EFS (with the Padlock icon) protected, to a new system. When trying to open them, I noticed that most of the files got an additional .PFILE extension and I was unable to open them. The old system was incapable of doing it as well.

After doing some research I tried the Azure Information Protection-Viewer which is associated with PFILES but it did not recognize the file extension for some reason: "This filetyp is not supported" on "my_image.jpg.PFILE"

The posts I found about this topic described a very similar behaviour to mine but were all left more or less unanswered:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/682524/ll-my-files-have-been-encrypted-by-azure-informati
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/362644/pictures-are-encrypted-(-pfile)-and-i-cant-open-th

The AIP-Viewer would also only show the files, I want the encryption removed entirely and I cannot accept that windows decided to destroy my files forever just because I moved them.

I do not have a support plan and I never knew about the existence of Azure til now.
It is worth mentioning that the drive I stored the files on was also temporarily Bitlocker encrypted and the new system was Linux based, so I formatted the drives filesystem to LUKS-encrypted Ext4.

Is there a way to retrieve my files? They are very important to me so I would appreciate a final answer on this topic, also guiding others who experience this problem.

Thanks in advance!

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Shweta Mathur 30,446 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2023-12-04T10:33:00.6866667+00:00

Hi @Aikidoo ,

Just checking in to see if the below answer helped. If this answers your query, please don’t forget to click "Accept Answer" which might be beneficial to other community members reading this thread. And, if you have any further query do let us know.
JamesTran-MSFT 37,231 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2023-12-05T20:28:02.5966667+00:00

@Aikidoo

I wanted to check in and see if you had any other questions or if you were able to resolve this issue?

If you have any other questions, please let me know. Thank you for your time and patience throughout this issue.

If the information helped address your question, please Accept the answer. This will help us and also improve searchability for others in the community who might be researching similar information.

1 answer

Shweta Mathur 30,446 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2023-12-04T10:33:00.6866667+00:00

Hi @Aikidoo ,

Just checking in to see if the below answer helped. If this answers your query, please don’t forget to click "Accept Answer" which might be beneficial to other community members reading this thread. And, if you have any further query do let us know.
JamesTran-MSFT 37,231 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2023-12-05T20:28:02.5966667+00:00

@Aikidoo

I wanted to check in and see if you had any other questions or if you were able to resolve this issue?

If you have any other questions, please let me know. Thank you for your time and patience throughout this issue.

If the information helped address your question, please Accept the answer. This will help us and also improve searchability for others in the community who might be researching similar information.

Answer 1

Hi @Aikidoo ,

Thanks for reaching out.

It sounds like the files you moved were encrypted using the Encrypting File System (EFS) feature in Windows. The .PFILE extension is added to the file name when the file is encrypted using EFS.

To decrypt the files, you will need to have access to the EFS certificate that was used to encrypt the files.

If you do not have access to the EFS certificate, you will need to try to recover it from a backup. If you are unable to recover the certificate, you will not be able to decrypt the files and they will be permanently lost.

Thanks,

Shweta

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Decrypt AIP protected .PFILE media files

1 answer