How to Password Protect a Folder in Snow Leopard

A friend of mine asked me how to make his files really, really secure. I wasn't sure so I scoured the internet to find an answer and it seemed that a bunch of people had the same question. Well I was able to figure it out and then decided that maybe other people could benefit from the knowledge, so I made a tutorial which explains how, so anyone with a Mac can password protect their files.

Materials Required: An Apple computer, sensitive information
Time Required: 2-5 minutes
Level of Difficulty: 2 (easy)

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Apple
• Mac
• OSX
• Snow
• Leopard
• Password
• Protect
• Folder
• DMG
• Disk
• Utility
• Secure

[goldensleeves]

So... what if the folder you want to delete is one that is apparently "required on a mac". For example, "pictures" is a folder that will not delete even if click on that folder's "get info" and then make sure that it's all set to "read/write" and the lock is unlocked... what do I do? Am I not going to be able to delete that one? Do I have to make a new folder, move all the files from the pictures folder to that new folder and then encrypt that new folder and then delete that new folder?

[DavidAcampora]

@goldensleeves If you wanted to encrypt your pictures folder, yes. You need to copy all of the files from you pictures folder into a new folder, encrypt the new folder, and delete all the files from your pictures folder. It'd be a good idea to do this on two separate drives, because you're essentially crunching all of those pictures (or files) into one file. If that file gets corrupted, you lose everything, so good idea to back up while you have everything all in one spot.

[goldensleeves]

Why do you have to choose 128bit encryption? What does that mean exactly? It doesn't change the actual files within the folder, right? The "encryption" is only like a door to get to the files, right? The files aren't actually changed to something of lesser quality, right?

[DavidAcampora]

@goldensleeves Encryption is the just the strength of the security. Selecting other options would make it easier to crack the password. Has nothing to do with the files.

[zoardyeck]

this video is great!!! really help me alot thanks for this i solve may problem with mac i have only one more problem left i hope anyone can help me out here

i want to share a folder in my mac the problem the people whole will going to open it are pc users and i need to put password so that only selected pc users can open my folder T_T many thanks in advance

[DavidAcampora]

@zoardyeck You might be better off using a web server like Dropbox. If you put the encrypted file inside of your public folder, the problem wont have anything to do with them being able to enter the password, but I think the PC users wont be able to read the files on a Mac-formatted drive. By uploading the files to dropbox, megaupload, etc., you can password protect and make the files translatable to any system.

[MrCDRipped]

Im only doing this for my porn! :D

[PobbyShaman]

lol yes the bigger the folder the longer it takes

[charcoaljohnson]

Very useful tutorial, BTW Dream Theater is one of my favorite bands. Cheers.

[Crazn1337]

FAP FAP FAP

[Maddy261297]

Yes, it does take more time for a larger folder to be encrypted. I encrypted a 30 gb folder (don't ask whats in it) and it took 30 minutes

[Maddy261297]

Great video, thank you very much! Can you help me in this too?

I accidentally did something to the disk for time machine back ups, so i couldn't save my back up on it. I found out a useful way of using that by transferring files between 2 users. But now, i want to decrease the disk's size so that i have more storage on my hard drive. I stupidly made it 130 gb. I want it to be 50 gb. How would i do that?

[vinogd1987]

works on Lion PS.

[OTIVrecords]

Yeah you show that zoom who's boss. 

[pshco75]

thanks man, helped me a lot, now I can stop myself from deleting important files

[MegaJust4comments]

@jlkill3r what is that a. then what ever you want it called or a . ?

[Ehuml]

Love it Thanks!

[jlkill3r]

This is good and another good thing is to add a . in the beginning so nobody can even see your folder in the first place, only thing is that you are either going to need to show hidden folders or type in location using the CMD+SHIFT+G command to find it