The question is simple

What I have is:

• I have a database file which is encrypted using sqlcipher.
• I also have the passphrase which was used to encrypt this db file

What I need is:

• I need to decrypt the database file/ need a database file which is unencrypted/non encrypted/decrypted.

4 Answers

Download and Build sqlcipher

--Skip this if sqlcipher is already installed

Pull the code from in a directory (say ~/sqlcipher)

mkdir ~/bld; # Build will occur in a sibling directory cd ~/bld; # Change to the build directory ../sqlcipher/configure --enable-tempstore=yes CFLAGS="-DSQLITE_HAS_CODEC" LDFLAGS="-lcrypto"; #configure sqlcipher make install; # Install the build products 

Decrypt the database to a plaintext database

$ cd ~/; $ ./sqlcipher encrypted.db sqlite> PRAGMA key = 'testkey'; sqlite> ATTACH DATABASE 'plaintext.db' AS plaintext KEY ''; -- empty key will disable encryption sqlite> SELECT sqlcipher_export('plaintext'); sqlite> DETACH DATABASE plaintext; 

Find the decrypted database at ~/plaintext.db which you can use with any sqlite browser like this.

Update : September 2015

now supports sqlcipher databases. That's neat.

Use SQliteStudio

Select SQLiteCipher and enter the password. The database will be opened.

This shell script will decrypt a SQLCipher database called mydb.db and create one called mydb-decrypt.db. Params are $1=key, $2, path to read & write from.

#!/bin/bash echo "Decrypting $2 using key $1" echo "PRAGMA key='$1';select count(*) from sqlite_master;ATTACH DATABASE '$2/mydb-decrypt.db' AS plaintext KEY '';SELECT sqlcipher_export('plaintext');DETACH DATABASE plaintext;" | sqlcipher $2/mydb.db echo "Done." 

If you wanted to do this in a single command line, the guts of this are:

echo "PRAGMA key='$1';select count(*) from sqlite_master;ATTACH DATABASE '$2/mydb-decrypt.db' AS plaintext KEY '';SELECT sqlcipher_export('plaintext');DETACH DATABASE plaintext;" | sqlcipher $2/mydb.db 

Building on the previous answers , I have a comprehensive answer. I have the configuration- OS X version - 10.10.4 Steps : 1. Donwload and build OpenSSL code:

$ curl -o openssl-1.0.0e.tar.gz $ tar xzf openssl-1.0.0e.tar.gz $ cd openssl-1.0.0e $ ./Configure darwin64-x86_64-cc $ make 

2. Download and build SQLCipher code.

In another directory,

$ git clone $ cd sqlcipher 

Change '/path/to/libcrypto.a' in the following command to your path

$ ./configure --enable-tempstore=yes CFLAGS="-DSQLITE_HAS_CODEC" LDFLAGS="/path/to/libcrypto.a" $ make 

3. Decrypt to plaintext database (As illustrated in previous post by Vinay)

   $ cd ~/; $ ./sqlcipher encrypted.db sqlite> PRAGMA key = 'testkey'; sqlite> ATTACH DATABASE 'plaintext.db' AS plaintext KEY ''; -- empty key will disable encryption sqlite> SELECT sqlcipher_export('plaintext'); sqlite> DETACH DATABASE plaintext; 

Tis should help you decrypt the encrypted file...