Recently, my boss asked me to lend him my external hard drive (can’t explain why). I’m a bit annoyed that it contains some personal content that I’m not comfortable sharing. Of course, I have every right to say why, but I don’t want to sound rude. So I fired up Google to find some quick ways to lock files on Windows.
Lock them, secure them | shutter
Turns out there is no way to do it without the help of an external application. Luckily, I had an internet connection so I downloaded a simple app for this purpose and handed over the drive knowing that my personal stuff was safe. But what if you are stuck in the same situation without internet access? There’s a popular script floating around the internet that makes it look like you’re actually locking a folder, but in reality it just hides-shows the folder and isn’t an effective method at all. So today we are going to see four ways by which you can cleverly hide your stuff in Windows without any (somewhat) outside help.
1. File Lock in Windows
Before we move on to the different methods, it is important to understand how encryption works in Windows. If you encrypt a file/folder in Windows, you can easily open, transfer or mail it and it will remain open on the receiving end. So one might wonder what it is to use Encryption? The answer is the encryption key (generated when you first encrypt something) associated with your account, more specifically your password. So whenever you log into your account, all encrypted files will be decrypted quickly and available in normal state. But in case, if someone steals your drive or creates a new account on your PC, they won’t be able to open them. In addition, there is some limitation of encryption, it is only available to Pro version users and will only work on NTFS partitions. Now let’s see what are the basic steps to encrypt a file or folder in Windows.
Step 1: Any file or folder can be encrypted in Windows, as long as the above conditions are met. Right click on the file > Property > Advanced button in General tab > check Encrypt content to secure data.
Step 2: Click ALRIGHT and the filename will turn green or a lock icon will appear depending on the version of Windows. You can add other users who can access the file by clicking Detail button as shown in above screenshot and click Add.
Hot Tip: Encryption isn’t just for Windows, it’s important on all platforms. Learn more about encryption for Mac, iOS, and Android.
2. File permissions and new user accounts
If someone wants to use your PC or wants to borrow your laptop, you can simply create a new account for them and change the permissions for files and folders that you don’t show them. Let’s see the process step by step.
Step 1: Enter Control Panel > User Accountsclick Manage other accounts > Add someone else to this PC. Make sure that the new account you are creating is not an administrator account, otherwise this whole process will be useless as the admin account can override all permissions regardless of files or folders.
Step 2: Once you’ve set up your new account, combine all your files and folders into a single folder. This will make it easy to manage permissions for some files. Right click on folder > Property > Protect tab, click Editor button. A new window will open.
Step 3: In the new window click on Add… to add a new user to the list. Another window will open where you have to enter the correct account name and then click Name check.
If the account is not visible, click Advanced… > Find Now, which lists all the accounts present on the PC. Select an account and click ALRIGHTin both previous windows to return to the Permissions window.
Step 4: Once you have added the relevant account, check Full control bottom box Refuse column and finally click Apply for saving.
Now if someone tries to access those files, they will get an Access Denied error. For added efficiency, give your folders some technical name like Windows System Files or Administrative Files to make the folders look like they’re actually system files. The above process can also be done in reverse, i.e. set permissions for files in the new account so that files in the original account cannot be accessed. This way someone won’t be in doubt as to why they were given a new account to use. But remember the Administrator account terms I mentioned earlier.
3. Zip Files & Keys
This method actually requires a third-party app, 7-Zip to work. But 7-zip has become the de facto application for managing compressed files for Windows, it should always be on everyone’s PC. If you’re on WinRar, it should work too.
Step 1: Gather all your files into one folder because you cannot add files after the archive is created. Right click on the folder and select 7-Zip > Add to archive….
Step 2: A new window will open with options to tweak. You can keep the default. Under Encrypt, enter a password of your choice, without which anyone can open them. Finally, click ALRIGHT and you’re done.
Note: Due to the way the repository works, one can open the archive and see the filename and file type. Only when they try to open or extract the file will they be asked for a password. So if you don’t want your documentary collection to be browsed, add them to a zip file first and then add the zip file to the archive.
Change file extension
This method is one of those simple things that will surprise you that you didn’t know before. Used in conjunction with zip files, it should work for most users. And this is also one of the only effective methods for Home edition users because their Windows has no encryption or Bitlocker.
Step 1: As usual, put all your stuff in one folder. Create a new zip file as shown in the screenshot below.
Step 2: Right click on the zip file and change the extension .zip to something else. Again, try to avoid common extensions and make filenames technical. If you can’t see .zip extension, you need to enable the setting by going to Control Panel > Folder Options > unchecked Hide file extensions for known file types select. You should turn this option ON again to confuse others.
4. Create a new partition and hide it
If you have enough free space on your hard disk, you can create an empty partition and dump all the stuff you want to lock into it and hide it.
Step 1: Create a new partition by following the instructions here or here.
Step 2: Copy all your content to the partition. From here on, Windows Pro edition users can only use Bitlocker or encrypt content (if the partition is on an external hard drive), and Windows Home edition users can hide the partition by following step next.
Step 3: Enter Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Create and format hard disk partitions > right click on the partition you created in Step 1 > Change drive letter and path…. In the new window, click Remove.
It will show a warning, accept it. Now your partition won’t show up in My Computer or anywhere in Windows. Of course, a smart user could figure this out and make the partition visible again according to the method shown in the next step. To prevent this from happening, change the permissions for the partition as described above.
Step 4: To restore the drive, go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions > Change Drive Letters and Paths …. In the new window, click Addto assign a drive letter.
Another method is to create a new partition in Linux format (ext2 or ext3). But that would require an external app but is also one of the simplest ways to hide something. To create an ext3, you can use any of the available primary partition managers. This ext3 partition will not show up in My Computer and to read or transfer files stored on it you will need an ext3 partition reader. I recommend this great open source application. Of course, other alternatives are just a Google search.
So what is your method?
The above methods are mostly for locking access or hiding files without any outside help. If you’re adventurous, there are plenty of solutions available, some open source, some proprietary. If you have some other methods, please share with us through comments.
SEE ALSO: How to Protect Your Windows 10 PC from Unknown Threats with Shade Sandbox
Categories: How to
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