How to Password Protect a File?

[mystang52]

Happy New Year! I have a bunch of PDF's that I'd like to save in one Folder on my desktop. I want to require a password to open the Folder ( along the same lines, I've been unable to password protect the PDF's themselves).
My Google search tells me to "encrypt" the Folder. But if I right click the Folder the "encrypt" is grayed-out. Any suggestions for this lay person?

 

[joesxm3]

If this is windows 10, you probably need to turn on the Encrypting File System service.

Go to the start thing and in the search type "services" to find the services application.

Click on it to start it.

Scroll down until you see the Encrypting File System service and change the start type to automatic. You may need to reboot after that.

 

[eeyore]

To turn on file encryption in Win10, you have to play with the registry

I use 7-Zip to pack the files into a zip file, with password protection. You can pack one or more files into one zip file. Other zip utilities offer the same service.

 

[mountainsoft]

I still use TrueCrypt to create encrypted drives that I can store whatever I want on. I mostly use encrypted drives for things like storing medical and financial records.

Several years ago there was a claim that TrueCrypt may have security issues and many folks moved to VeraCrypt. I tried it but found it to be much slower than TrueCrypt. So I stayed with TrueCrypt.

I'm not trying to attain military grade encryption, I simply want to keep out prying eyes if someone had access to my computer or if one of my backup drives were stolen. Truecrypt works good enough for me.

 

[zinger1457]

I've been using Windows Bitlocker for disk encryption, it's included in the edu version of Windows (10, now 11) that I use. Windows 11 is suppose to now include the disk encryption portion of Bitlocker in the Home version, in the article I read they referred to it as Bitlocker lite.

 

[target2019]

TrueCrypt or VeraCrypt volume
or
Password protected 7zip file

 

[jim584672]

TrueCrypt or VeraCrypt volume
or
Password protected 7zip file

+1

I like a Veracrypt container because it acts like a drive, just drag files in. You can also Veracrypt your entire drive, log in when you startup.

 

[easysurfer]

For those who use an encrypted container like Veracrypt, do you leave the volume mounted or do you dismount?

I use Veracrypt for sensitive data (like my taxes). But I mount then dismount as soon as no longer in use. My thinking is if some hacker gets into my computer, as long as I'm not using the data at the time, be most the hacker can do is get an encrypted volume.

 

[Sunset]

For those who use an encrypted container like Veracrypt, do you leave the volume mounted or do you dismount?

I use Veracrypt for sensitive data (like my taxes). But I mount then dismount as soon as no longer in use. My thinking is if some hacker gets into my computer, as long as I'm not using the data at the time, be most the hacker can do is get an encrypted volume.

I do same as you, use it when needed, but otherwise don't leave open containers.

Of course my entire drive is encrypted, which is unencrypted upon boot up (with pwd). It's a linux system.
But my sensitive files are contained within a VeraCrypt container.

 

[easysurfer]

I do same as you, use it when needed, but otherwise don't leave open containers.

Of course my entire drive is encrypted, which is unencrypted upon boot up (with pwd). It's a linux system.
But my sensitive files are contained within a VeraCrypt container.

Good to know that my strategy may not be overkill then .

 

[mountainsoft]

For those who use an encrypted container like Veracrypt, do you leave the volume mounted or do you dismount?

I try to dismount my encrypted volumes when I am done using them, but sometimes I get busy and forget. Thankfully, Truecrypt has an option to dismount automatically after some time has passed. I have mine set for two hours. If I haven't accessed the drive in that time, it dismounts the volume automatically.

 

[Car-Guy]

I still use TrueCrypt to create encrypted drives that I can store whatever I want on. I mostly use encrypted drives for things like storing medical and financial records.

Truecrypt works good enough for me.

+1 Been using it for well over a decade. It's freeware and no longer supported by the developers but it works well for me too.

 

[gauss]

Something to think about - how do folks handle making backups of their encrypted files?

Using the 'Zip' based methods it would be fairly straight forward.

Other solutions may not be so obvious.

Of course the first question to ask and answer is do you want the backups encrypted also.

-gauss

 

[Ian S]

I've been using the free version of Wise Folder Hider since McAfee decide to end their folder hiding ability.

 

[Sunset]

Something to think about - how do folks handle making backups of their encrypted files?
.....
Of course the first question to ask and answer is do you want the backups encrypted also.
..

I tar up my files (it's like zip in MS) and then copy the tar file to an encrypted container (a large file/drive on an external drive).

For small encrypted containers like I might take for a trip, I just copy the entire encrypted file-like thing to another flash drive.

All my stuff is encrypted, except my photos and music files as there is no need to encrypt them and they amount to a lot.

 

[target2019]

If the container is not hidden you drag it to a USB stick or drive. If your container is in an area you back up regularly (My Documents) then the container is backed up also.

 

[OverThinkMuch]

Snowden showed that the big tech companies worked with the NSA, so I'm less trusting of a Microsoft solution. While I'd probably show the government my files anyways if required, my goal is keeping thieves away from my financial data.

Several years ago there was a claim that TrueCrypt may have security issues and many folks moved to VeraCrypt. I tried it but found it to be much slower than TrueCrypt. So I stayed with TrueCrypt.

TrueCrypt is deprecated - there's no maintenance if it stops working. The only "slower" part I've seen is opening the folder. VeraCrypt uses an interative algorithm to add security, and that hasn't bothered me. Once the folder is open, the speed is the same.

 

[OverThinkMuch]

Something to think about - how do folks handle making backups of their encrypted files?

I copy the encrypted files into the cloud and to USB sticks... they're probably replicated a dozen times or so. I create a directory named with both the current date and a description. So if I just finished my taxes today, I might have "2021-01-02 taxes" as a folder, and then I'd copy my encrypted taxes file to that folder. If it's been awhile, I'll use "full" as the description and copy all the encrypted files. That way I capture changes.

My laptop has 2 SSDs, so I make copies on both of those drives. I made a couple more copies on USB sticks. Finally, I'll upload the folder of encrypted files to Amazon Cloud, Dropbox, and Google Drive. Each offers free storage up to a limit, and I make sure I have a full copy and all changes since. Overall there's a dozen places where my encrypted files live, but each requires the password to unlock. I don't copy everything every time, but I try to keep things up to date.

 

[FIREd_2015]

Happy New Year! I have a bunch of PDF's that I'd like to save in one Folder on my desktop. I want to require a password to open the Folder ( along the same lines, I've been unable to password protect the PDF's themselves).
My Google search tells me to "encrypt" the Folder. But if I right click the Folder the "encrypt" is grayed-out. Any suggestions for this lay person?

You can encrypt PDF files using paid version of Adobe Acrobat. I've been encrypting PDFs using Adobe Acrobat Pro (old version without subscription fee) for some time now. A quick internet search shows some free open source programs are also available - PDFEncrypt, PDF24 Creator. Don't know how goods these are compared to Adobe's product. It's been really handy to be able to encrypt individual pdf files since I can put them on a USB drive and open them virtually on any computer since most computers and browsers support pdf files. Just be aware that the password length needs to be at least 11-13 characters to avoid decryption using brute force method.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

For those of you using Veracrypt, how long does it take to open files in the container? Also, I use Google backup and sync, if I use Veracrypt for this file...will it still back up to Google?

Also, any one use Cryptomator?

 

[jim584672]

For those of you using Veracrypt, how long does it take to open files in the container? Also, I use Google backup and sync, if I use Veracrypt for this file...will it still back up to Google?

Also, any one use Cryptomator?

I don't notice any speed difference, very minimal if any. Never tried it with Google.

 

[f35phixer]

I've been using the free version of Wise Folder Hider since McAfee decide to end their folder hiding ability.

you likes this ian? i had used the McAfee vault too. Downloaded Vera crypt just haven't installed.

 

[target2019]

For those of you using Veracrypt, how long does it take to open files in the container? Also, I use Google backup and sync, if I use Veracrypt for this file...will it still back up to Google?

Also, any one use Cryptomator?

I've been using TrueCrypt for a long time, and recently installed VeraCrypt. There is a delay when you first open the VeraCrypt drive. For example I set up a 4GB container, and it takes about 5 seconds to un-encrypt the drive at computer startup, after I enter the password.

If you dismount the drive after using, and use it frequently, I can see that as being an impediment, in that you'll need to mount the drive many times if you use it frequently.

 

[jim584672]

If you want to use gpg the command is...

gpg --output '/path/test.txt.gpg' --symmetric --cipher-algo AES256 '/path/test.txt'

This is for plain AES with no public/private keys, just one conventional key.

 

[Sunset]

I open my Veracrypt, and it acts like a another drive. So to open some file inside of it is just like using another drive. It's fast.

For my backups, I copy the encrypted container to other storage, if I copied a single file inside the Veracrypt container to another drive, the file would not be encrypted anymore.