en	[[!meta title="Converting dangerous documents to safe PDFs using Dangerzone"]]

en	When you receive untrusted documents, for example, email attachments, *[Dangerzone](https://dangerzone.rocks/)* allows you to convert them into safe PDFs before opening.

en	*Dangerzone* is particularly useful for journalists who might receive dangerous documents from anonymous sources or download them from the Internet.

en	<div class="tip">

en	Dangerzone is created by Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit that protects public-interest journalism. Edward Snowden and Laura Poitras are on its Board of Directors.

en	</div>

en	You can install *Dangerzone* in Tails using the [[Additional Software|additional_software]] feature.

en	We are not including *Dangerzone* in Tails only because it would be too big (over 1 GB), but we highly recommend it.

en	Learn more about [how *Dangerzone* works](https://dangerzone.rocks/about/).

en	[[!toc levels=2]]

en	Supported formats

en	*Dangerzone* works on many file formats, including:

en	PDFs

en	*Microsoft Office* documents, such as .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx

en	*LibreOffice* documents, such as .odt and .ods

en	Images, such as .jpg, .gif, .svg, .tiff, and .png

en	EPUB ebooks

en	Differences between *Dangerzone* and *Metadata Cleaner*

en	Tails also includes [[*Metadata Cleaner*|doc/sensitive_documents/metadata]] to clean files, but the use cases for *Dangerzone* and *Metadata Cleaner* are very different.

en	We recommend that you use:

en	*Metadata Cleaner* to [[remove metadata from your files|doc/sensitive_documents/metadata]] before you publish or share them.

en	*Dangerzone* to sanitize untrusted documents shared with you by others.

en	*Dangerzone**Metadata Cleaner* Safe to use onOther people's filesYour files only Clean audio and video filesNoYes Remove malware and trackersYesNo Remove visual metadata and fingerprints¹NoNo Allow selecting text in generated PDFsYesNo SpeedSlowerFaster Included in Tails by defaultNoYes

en	1. For example [[!wikipedia Machine Identification Code desc="printer tracking dots"]], printing imperfections, or intentional misspellings

en	System requirements

en	*Dangerzone* requires a lot of memory in the computer and space in your Persistent Storage because it relies on [[!wikipedia Containerization (computing) desc="software containers"]] to manipulate dangerous files securely.

en	To install *Dangerzone*, you need at least:

en	8 GB of RAM

en	12 GB available in the Persistent Storage

en	Installing *Dangerzone*

en	To install *Dangerzone* as additional software in Tails, you have to:

en	[[Configure the *Dangerzone* APT repository|dangerzone#configure]]

en	[[Install the *Dangerzone* package|dangerzone#install]]

en	[[Convert a test document|dangerzone#test]]

en	Configure the Dangerzone APT repository

en	When starting Tails, [[set up an administration password|doc/first_steps/welcome_screen/administration_password]].

en	Choose **Apps&nbsp;▸ Tails&nbsp;▸ Persistent Storage** to open the Persistent Storage settings.

en	Create a Persistent Storage if you don't have one already.

en	Make sure that the **Additional Software** feature is enabled.

en	Close the Persistent Storage settings.

en	Choose **Apps&nbsp;▸ System Tools&nbsp;▸ Console**.

en	Execute the following command to open the configuration of your Persistent Storage in the *Text Editor* with administration rights.

en	gnome-text-editor admin:/live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/persistence.conf

en	Add the following line to store the configuration of third-party APT repositories in your Persistent Storage.

en	/etc/apt/sources.list.d source=apt/sources,link

en	Add the following line to store *Podman* containers in your Persistent Storage. [*Podman*](https://podman.io/) is the containerization technology used by *Dangerzone*.

en	/home/amnesia/.local/share/containers source=podman

en	Save your changes and close the *Text Editor*.

en	Execute the following commands to configure the *Dangerzone* repository as additional APT repository.

en	sudo mkdir /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/apt/sources

en	sudo ln -s /usr/share/tails/apt/dangerzone.sources /live/persistence/TailsData_unlocked/apt/sources/

en	<div class="caution">

en	We include this sources file in Tails for convenience, but installing Dangerzone relies on the APT repository hosted by Freedom of the Press Foundation. As a consequence:

en	You need to trust the packages from this repository not to break the security of your Tails. Dangerzone might stop working in Tails outside of the control of the Tails team.

en	</div>

en	Restart Tails.

en	Install the Dangerzone package

en	[[Connect to the Tor network|doc/anonymous_internet/tor]].

en	Execute the following commands to install the `dangerzone` package and its dependencies.

en	sudo apt update

en	sudo apt install dangerzone fuse-overlayfs uidmap

en	After the packages are installed, a notification appears to ask if you want to install `dangerzone`, `fuse-overlayfs`, and `uidmap` every time you start Tails in the future.

en	Choose to **Install Every Time**.

en	Close the *Console*.

en	Convert a test document

en	Choose **Apps&nbsp;▸ Office&nbsp;▸ Dangerzone** to open *Dangerzone*.

en	When opened for the first time, *Dangerzone* installs its container.

en	This operation can take several minutes.

en	After the setup finishes, *Dangerzone* opens.

en	Click the button **Select suspicious documents**.

en	[[!img dangerzone.png class="screenshot" alt=""]]

en	Select a simple document to test the conversion process, like an empty *LibreOffice* document or an image.

en	Converting this first document can also take several minutes. After this first document, converting other documents will be faster.

en	<div class="bug">

en	If converting fails with the error Unknown error code '125', restart Tails and try again.

en	Dangerzone needs a lot of available RAM when running for the first time. Restarting Tails frees as much RAM as possible.

en	Dangerzone requires at least 8 GB of RAM to install.

en	After the conversion finishes, the original document is moved to a new *unsafe* folder and the name of the safe document that has been created includes *safe*. For example:

en	├── document-safe.odt └── unsafe └── document.odt

en	<div class="next">

en	You can use several applications included in Tails to [[edit the safe PDF|sensitive_documents/pdf]] produced by Dangerzone.