LOCK YOUR FILES AND FOLDERS IN COMPUTER
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| Safehouse Explorer |
Do you have files
and folders on your computer that you absolutely don’t want anyone else to see?
Or do you even carry important documents on those easy-to-misplace USB drives?
it’s a free and
easy-to-use file encryption utility that will hide all your private files from
prying eyes in few easy steps. You may use the tool to password protect files
that are residing on your computer’s internal hard disk or even on external USB
drives.
Tutorial: Encrypt
and Password Protect your Files and Folders
SafeHouse
Explorer, in simple English, works something like this. It creates a hidden
storage area on your disk to hold all the files that you want to protect. These
files and folders are hidden from normal view and will only become visible when
you enter the correct password.
Here’s a more
detailed tutorial on how you can protect your files with SafeHouse Explorer.
Step 1: Download
and install the SafeHouse Explorer program to your hard-drive ( screenshot ).
The software
works with XP, Vista and Windows 7 (both 32 and 64-bit editions). It is also
portable so you may run it directly without installation.
Step 2: Once the
installation is complete, click the “New Volume” button to create your hidden
storage that will house your various files and folders.
You may either
create one large volume to store all the “private” files or you can create
multiple smaller-size volumes each corresponding to the type of files that they’ll
store. For instance, you may have one volume for storing confidential documents
and spreadsheets while another one could be for hiding those “personal”
pictures and so on.For step 2b,
choose a volume size based on the size of the folders that you’ll be storing
inside that volume. The “Pre-initialize Volume with Random Data” basically
means that your virtual drive will be filled with random data if there are not
enough files to fill complete that volume. Use the default “on” setting.
Step 3. Now that your
volume is created, open Windows Explorer (Win+E) and you’ll see a new “virtual
drive” under My Computer. Just drag and drop any of your folders and files into
this virtual drive and they’ll instantly get protected using encryption.
Once you have
added all the files to the “protected” volume, make sure you delete them from
the original location as the original copy is unencrypted and therefore anyone
can open it without requiring a password.
Step 4. Switch to
SafeHouse Explorer and choose File – > Close Volume to lock up the files.
Congratulations. You have successfully created your first encrypted and
password-protected folder on your computer that you can only access after
typing the correct password.
To access your
protected files, simply navigate to the folder that houses your SafeHouse
volumes and double-click the corresponding volume file to open it. Type the
password and you should see all the files and folders under a virtual drive in
Windows Explorer again.
Encryption is
obviously a complex subject for most of us but what you’ll really like about
SafeHouse Explorer is that it hides all the technical details from the end
user.
Encrypt your USB
Flash Drive and Email Attachments
The tool will
also be extremely handy for people who carry around important and confidential
files on USB drives and external hard disks.
Instead of
copying files and folders to your external disk directly, first encrypt these
files on the hard-drive (as explained above) and then copy the encrypted volume
(the.sksk file) to your external disk. Now even if the drive gets misplaced,
the finder won’t be able to read any of your files and, since the software uses
256-bit encryption, it will be nearly impossible for anyone to crack your
password.
Similarly, you
can add an extra layer of protection to your sensitive email attachments with
SafeHouse. Encrypt the files, send them as email attachments and communicate
the
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