How To Lock and Password Protect Files, Folders On Mac – Macs and Windows PCs are characteristically unique in how the capacity, regardless of them existing to fill fundamentally a similar need. When you begin utilizing a Mac, for example, you promptly understand that there’s no alternative for Cut, but instead simply Copy, and on the off chance that you need to move something to another area, you have to take after a marginally unique process. One such contrast is securing your own information. While Macs are more secure than Windows-based PCs as a matter of course, there may be situations where you’re not worried about insurance against malware but rather secret key ensuring (or encoding) your own documents, making them unavailable to everybody other than yourself. This can be information like money related articulations, MasterCard data, photographs or essentially anything. Indeed, you can without much of a stretch do that on a Mac.

This needs to do with the way OS X handles document stockpiling contrasted with Windows. In Windows, you get encryption alternatives, beyond any doubt, yet in the event that you need to simply secret key ensures an organizer, there’s no simple approach. You should utilize an outsider programming to make a protected vault. OS X, nonetheless, permits you to do that as a matter of course, in spite of the fact that the procedure is not that clear. That is the general purpose of this guide – to demonstrate to you how you can secure an organizer on a Mac without utilizing an outer apparatus.

We will deal with this through two diverse methodologies. To begin with technique, expect that you have every one of the information that should be secured as of now in one organizer and will work with simply that. The second technique will lead you to make a protected vault (a circle picture, to be particular) where you can put your own information as required. Both these strategies will make utilization of OS X’s implicit Disk Utility.

How to Password Protect Any Folder on Mac

For the sake of this guide, I have created a folder on my desktop called My Personal Stuff on my desktop. That’s what we will be working with.

To begin, launch Disk Utility. You can either do that via the Spotlight shortcut (hit Command + Space and type Disk Utility, and hit Enter), or you can find the utility in the Others folder on your Mac’s Launchpad.

Within the Disk Utility, navigate to the File menu from menu bar and select New Image > Image From Folder.

You will now be asked to select the folder that you want to make a disk image out of. Select your desired folder.

The next screen will ask you to select a name for your disk image, the location where you want to save it, and all the usual parameters. At the bottom of this dialog, there are the two options that matter the most: Encryption and Image Format. This is where you have to pay the most attention. For Encryption, select 128-bit AES encryption (recommended), and for Image Format, pick read/write.

Please note : that when you select the encryption option, you will be asked to enter a password and verify it. Remember this, because if you forget this password, there is no way to access those files again.

Once you hit Save, the creation process will begin. Depending on the size of your folder, it can take some time so be patient.

When you get the successfully completed message on Disk Utility, the process is basically complete. You will notice a new .dmg file in your selected location which is your encrypted folder. Attempt to mount it and you will be asked to enter the password.

Please ensure that you do not allow for this password to be remembered in Keychain, as that will defeat the whole point of having this folder in the first place. Once you’re satisfied, you can even delete the original folder and continue working with the protected disk image. Whatever you had in this disk image is not password protected, and you can even add more data to it as you like.

Once you’re done using your password protected folder, don’t forget to unmount to restrict access. That’s all there is to it.

How to Create a New Password Protected Folder on Mac

Principally, this method follows the same practice as the first one, but it differs in a number of creation parameters, mainly with respect to how you approach the password protected folder. In the first method, you were using an existing folder and encrypting that; over here, we’ll show you how to create a new, empty storage vault (folder) with a specified file to store pretty much anything.

To begin, launch Disk Utility. You can either do that via the Spotlight shortcut (hit Command + Space and type Disk Utility, and hit Enter), or you can find the utility in the Others folder on your Mac’s Launchpad.

Within the Disk Utility, navigate to the File menu from menu bar and select New Image > Blank Image.

You will be presented with a dialog window offering a number of options. Specify the name of your vault, the size (pay attention to this; you will not be able to change it afterwards), image format, encryption, partitions etc. Please note that format should be OS X Extended (Journaled), use 128-bit AES encryption, partition is Single partition – Apple Partition Map and image format is read/write disk image. As before, selecting the encryption option will ask you to provide a password, along with all the associated options.

Once you hit Save, the encrypted disk image in your specified size and other parameters will be created in the selected location. Note that for the first time, this disk image will be automatically mounted. At this point, you can move any data that you need to protect to this disk image.

Once you unmount this image, the next attempt at mounting it will throw a password prompt. Make sure you don’t allow for remembrance of the password in Keychain, and you’re all set.

Now you have a password-protected vault that you can use to store your personal/confidential data up to the size that you specified during creation of this .dmg file. To store or access data, mount the disk image, provide the specified password and it will appear in Finder as a mounted drive. Copy whatever you want to this location and once you’re satisfied, unmount it to restrict access again.