Is there a more efficient way to backup and encrypt my data? (to the cloud)

This is the setup I have been using for the past 10 years. There are a few categories of data that I backup (such as my software collection, or project notes I am working on etc.).

For example, my software collection:
I will have all my applications and software in a folder d:\My software collection and will use WinZip to put it all into a file and then encrypt that file and then upload it to an online clouding site.

From that point on, whenever I download or purchase new software, I will put it into a folder called d:\My software collection\New Software.
In 3-6 months, I will probably want to backup all the new software in that folder and create a new Zip file, encrypt it and cloud the updates.

Another Example is my project notes:
I have a folder called d:\My Projects where I will work on various personal projects (such as eating healthier) which will be constantly updated every day. I already use syncing program to easily backup my data locally, but what about online backup?

The difference is that unlike "My software collection", I do not have a folder called "New Projects," so I have to manually find all files modified after a certain date and WinZip only those files to backup into an encrypted container and then upload it to my cloud service.

I realize that I have to do everything manually and was wondering if anyone knows a better more efficient way to backup encrypted data?

 

This thread is only partially relevant but can give you some ideas.

There are some interesting file encryption services developed specifically for cloud storage, that do the job automatically, some free and some shareware. You would need to try them and find out one that works best for you as they have different approaches.
In no particular order you could check:
Viivo
Boxcryptor
Cloudfogger

a comparative review of some services.
I'd be curious if you find anything else interesting.

It's a few months since I have checked, I imagine there will be new alternatives as well.

 

You could try something like Truecrypt and say Dropbox. There are a lot of how-to's on how to set them up and they work well together.

You'll have a Truecrypt container locally where you'll save/backup your files and then it's the container that gets synced to Dropbox (or the cloud provider of choice). The point of it all is that the data is already encrypted BEFORE it goes anywhere.

 

Thanks for all your suggestions, great ideas, I will be looking into them all and hopefully find things that work for me