Database Settings Describes the various database options.

On the database settings dialog, you can configure various database-related settings.

• General
• Security Options
• Protection Options
• Compression Options
• Templates

  General

On this tab page you can specify general things like the name of the database and a description. Additionally, you can set various defaults like a default user name for new entries (created in this database).

  Security Options

On this page you can specify various encryption-related settings. Only change this settings when you really know what you are doing.

Encryption Algorithm:
You can set the encryption algorithm, which is used to encrypt the database. All encryption algorithms offered by KeePass are well-known standard algorithms, regarded as very secure by the cryptography community. These standards are used by banks for example. All of the algorithms are unbroken; there is no "best" algorithm. If you don't know which algorithm to choose, use the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES, Rijndael) algorithm.

Key Transformation:
See Protection against Dictionary Attacks.

KeePass has a link button on this page to compute the number of key transformations your computer can do in 1 second. If you for example only want to wait 0.5 seconds, half the number resulted from the benchmark.

  Protection Options

On this page you can configure run-time memory protection settings for this database. Fields can be stored encrypted in process memory. This ensures that no other application can read your data by dumping the memory of KeePass.

It is recommended to turn on memory protection for password fields and leave it disabled for all others. Process memory protection slows down all operations a bit, you should therefore carefully decide which fields are really worth to be protected this way.

Memory protection is useless if you display the fields in the main window (because if they are displayed in this window, they are automatically stored as plain-text in memory as Windows needs to be able to read it), therefore KeePass offers you to turn on visual hiding in the main window for the selected protected fields. It is highly recommended to check this option before closing the dialog.

  Compression Options

KeePass databases can be compressed before being encrypted. Compression reduces the size of the database, but also slows down the database saving/loading process a bit.

It is recommended to use the GZip compression option. This algorithm is very fast (you won't notice any difference to saving the database without compression) and its compression rate is acceptable.

It is not recommended to save databases without compression.

On modern PCs, saving files with compression can actually be faster than saving without compression, because the compression process is performed by the CPU (which is very fast) and fewer data has to be transferred from/to the storage device. Especially when the device is slow (like saving to USB stick), compression can reduce the saving/loading time significantly.

  Templates

Templates are a great way to predefine often used user names or additional fields, or combinations of each.

• A template is a normal KeePass entry with all required data already entered.
• Templates must be kept in a single group.
• Do not put real data entries in the template group.

First create a normal group in the main window and then set it as the templates group in 'File' -> 'Database Settings' -> tab 'Templates'.

In order to create a new entry based on a template in the templates group, click the drop-down arrow of the 'Add Entry' toolbar button and choose the template to be used.