If you share a PC or laptop with your coworkers or family members, your privacy can take a big hit. You can’t freely store your personal information like banking info, login credentials, or private files on your PC without the risk of someone else accessing them. Luckily, you can take a couple of measures to ensure your private files are safely locked on the shared system. In this article, we bring you the 4 best ways to password-protect any file or folder on a Windows PC or laptop.
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Encrypt your files and folders on Windows
Encrypting a file or folder on your Windows PC ensures that no other account on the system is able to view it. When you’re logged in to your Windows account, you won’t need to enter a password to view the encrypted folder. In case someone gets access to your hard drive and tries to view its content using another account, basic encryption will deny them any access. Before you begin this process, make sure that the drive containing the folder is formatted as NTFS. Here’s how you can encrypt a file or folder on Windows.
Step 1: Open the folder containing the file you want to encrypt.
Step 2: Right-click on the file and click on ‘Properties’.
Step 3: Select ‘Advanced’.
Step 4: Tick the box for ‘Encrypt contents to secure data’. Apply the settings and then click on ‘Okay’.
Step 5: Windows will ask you whether you want to encrypt the entire folder or just that specific file. Enter your choice.
Once the process is complete, a small yellow lock will appear next to the file or folder that has been encrypted. The files will automatically be decrypted as long as you access them using your Windows account.
Password protect a file using a zipped folder
Use this simple trick to password-protect any file on your Windows PC.
Step 1: Right-click on the file you want to secure and hover the cursor over ‘Send To’.
Step 2: Select ‘Zip folder (compressed)’.
Step 3: Rename the folder.
Step 4: Open the folder and click on ‘File’. Select ‘Add password’.
Step 5: Create a new password and save your changes.
You can add other files to this folder to password-protect them.
Password protect a file or folder using 7-Zip
7-Zip is a great tool for Windows that will help you add a layer of security to the important files and folders on your system. Here’s how you can use it.
Step 1: Download the 7-Zip tool for Windows using this link.
Step 2: Follow the onscreen instructions and install 7-Zip on your PC.
Step 3: Select the file you want to secure.
Step 4: Right-click on the file and go to 7-Zip>Add to archive.
Step 5: In the following window, enter the password under the ‘Encryption’ section.
Step 6: Change the encryption method from ZipCrypto to AES-256.
Step 7: Click on ‘Ok’ to create the password-protected folder.
Use a third-party file locker
There are several third-party software and Windows apps you can use to lock the important files on your PC. Some anti-virus protection tools have a folder lock functionality as well. We recommend going through the anti-virus software installed on your PC for folder-locking options. If you don’t find any such feature, we recommend using Folder Lock for file encryption and password protection. You can download it for free using this link.
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Conclusion
These are the 4 best ways you can password-protect any file or folder on a Windows PC or laptop. If you’re sharing a PC with your family members, we’d suggest encrypting your data if everyone has a separate user account on the PC. If everyone uses one common account, then adding a password is the only choice you have to secure your personal information.
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