First, you need to install rar. I think anyone can do this. But don't rush. You'll soon understand why you don't need to install WinRar. More on this below. But let's assume that we already have it.

Select the file or folder that you want to archive and right-click on it. Then select "Add to archive..."

Now select the compression level and format. I recommend using the ZIP format. Because such an archive can be opened on any computer, even if no archivers or programs are specifically installed on it. Zip is a universal format that is understood by all operating systems. For example, Windows displays the contents of a Zip archive in the same way as the contents of a simple folder, except that it does not allow you to change the files inside the archive without unpacking it. To unpack an archive in RAR format, you need the WinRar program. If you are sending a file to someone and you are not sure that they have WinRar installed, it is better to archive it in ZIP. In general, it’s better to archive it in ZIP.

You also need to select the compression level. If you just need to put a password on a file or folder, select “No compression.” This will significantly speed up the process of creating and unpacking the archive, although it will not reduce its size. The size reduction is noticeable on text data and documents. And pictures, music, videos and the like usually practically do not decrease in size, regardless of the compression force. Sometimes they even increase. They should be archived in the "No compression" mode.

To set a password, go to the "Advanced" tab and click "Set password...". A window will appear.

Enter the password twice (to avoid typos) and remember it. Hacking the archive later is very problematic. Now click "OK" and that's it! Your archive is ready.

To illustrate the above steps, I recorded a short silent video.

How to create a password-protected 7z archive

Personally, I don't like WinRAR. Why - I wrote above. I usually install the 7z archiver for myself. It can compress and decompress archives in a variety of formats, including Rar. Therefore, it more than replaces it. In addition, it can pack files using its own algorithm and make 7z archives. They are often more compact than ZIP and RAR. But to deploy them you need the 7z archiver.

To create a password-protected 7z archive you need to do much less steps. Select a file or folder and right-click on it. Select "Add to archive...". By the way, this is really an add function. If you already have an archive, you can add files to it without repacking.

And here is a window in front of you. Guess how to set the password?

That's all. I hope it helped you. I hope that most of my readers still know how to do this without me. But people from search engines often come to me. I hope this is a helpful post.

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. For some reason, there are no built-in tools in Windows that would allow you to block access to a folder for those who do not know the password to access it.

At the same time, any user of this operating system this is exactly what comes to mind the simplest way keep some of your data confidential- just put a password on the folder where the “hidden” documents (files or other directories) will be stored.

Well, really, what could be more logical than to password-protect access to a certain directory and put there everything that you would like to protect from prying eyes (spouse, children, hackers, competent authorities, etc.). There may be many goals, but the solution seems obvious - make a kind of safe out of any folder, the code for which only you will know (and how to come up with it, read the article).

How to set a password for a folder after archiving it

However, simple solutions to this problem (built into Windows means) still no. More precisely, there are a number of methods that do not guarantee any confidentiality, but only provide “fool protection”. It doesn't make much sense to rely on them. In this same publication I want to focus on a way to make a safe of the highest security category from any catalog, but for this you will have to install an additional program in the OS.

It was originally built on open source and a priori () did not contain bookmarks that would allow developers to access your password-protected data. Unfortunately, the developers have now sold themselves to BitLocker, whose products are already closed source, which means your password folders can, if desired, be opened using backdoors. However, TrueCrypt can still be found and used for your purposes.

But first, I’ll give you something easier to use, but less reliable way(competent authorities and specialists will be able to hack the directory, but your relatives and friends will not). It lies in the fact that the necessary the folder can be archived with a password, so that a person who does not know it would no longer be able to carry out the unzipping process.

You are all probably very familiar with archivers. Among them there are both paid and free versions. But in addition to its main functionality - creating archives to save disk space and speed up data transfer over the Internet, modern archivers allow you to encrypt archived data and protect it with passwords. It is this opportunity that we will take advantage of.

Let's try to archive a folder and put a password on it, first using the example of a free archiver (7-Zip), and then using the example of a paid one (WinRAR), which, however, is installed on almost all computers. I think that you have at least one of them, and if not, you can always install them by going to the official websites of the developers of these programs ().

How to archive and password protect a directory in 7-Zip

So, if you have an archiver installed on Windows 7-Zip, then in order to archive any folder (or a set of files and directories) in it, it will be enough to right-click on it and select “7-Zip” - “Add to archive” from the drop-down context menu:

As a result, you will see the archiving settings window, where, among other settings, you can set a password to access this archive, or rather, encrypt the entire contents of the folder (while archiving it), and this code will be the key to decryption.

A feature of “archiving with a password” of directories via 7-Zip is that you can enter the created archive (folder) without entering a password, and when you try to open any file you will be required to enter it:

If you want to password-protect access not only to the files in this directory, but also prohibit viewing the contents of this folder without entering a password, then simply check the “Encrypt file names” box in the archiving settings window (second screenshot from here). After this, when you try to view the contents of the archive, a prompt to enter a password will pop up.

How to set a password when archiving a folder in WinRAR

You can also use the capabilities of the second of the archivers mentioned above to simultaneously archive and password protect a folder - WinRAR. As I already mentioned, it’s paid, but for some reason in RuNet they don’t really take it into account.

If WinRAR is already installed in Windows, then simply right-click on the directory where you want to set a password and select “Add to archive” from the context menu:

In the window that opens, go to the “Advanced” tab and click on the “Set password” button:

Here you will be asked to create and enter a password, which will become the key to your archived folder, and you can also check the “Encrypt file names” box so that no one can view the contents of the archive without entering the password (we already talked about this a little higher):

After that, click OK twice and try to enter the created archive using the password you created. If everything worked out, then you can delete the original folder, the contents of which need to be hidden from prying eyes. And as needed, you will simply log into this archived and password-protected folder. It's a little stressful to have to enter your password all the time, but security requires sacrifice. IMHO ()

How to put a strong password on a folder using TrueCrypt

As I mentioned just above, there is various programs, which make it possible to implement such an obvious Windows users The idea is to block access to the folder using a password. There are quite a few such programs (for example, Folder Lock, DirLock, Anvide Lock Folder, File lock, Lim LockFolder, etc.), but a user who understands computers will most likely be able to bypass them. Therefore, if you want to hide something from your household or work colleagues on your computer, then they will suit you just fine.

But often something more radical is required, when hacking a password-protected folder will require monstrous efforts and computing power, which will naturally deter most potential hackers. This type of tool includes the TrueCrypt program, which allows you to set a password not only for a directory, but even for the entire computer (to completely encrypt the system partition, if you need it).

I have already written in some detail about working with her:

Unfortunately, today the developers no longer release new versions of the program, because they switched to working in BitLocker (Microsoft), but you can download TrueCrypt one of the latest versions via this link. In any case, it works great for me.

Let me explain a little what “put a password on a folder” means in TrueCrypt, because this is somewhat different from the options discussed above. In this program, you create a container from any file that is on your computer and has just been created.

It will be very difficult to discover that it is a container for something, and besides, inside this container (actually a folder with files and other directories) you can create a hidden container, which certainly no one will guess about. Hackers very actively use this program to hide, for example, their correspondence, because it is difficult to even find corrupted (encrypted) information, not to mention hacking it.

So, this very container is encrypted and decrypted on the fly (you won’t even notice it) and you can work with it as with a regular directory (even more like with a portable hard drive or flash drive, because this password-protected folder is connected in Windows exactly as a new virtual disk).

That. you can copy something there, delete it, move it standard means operating system (via Explorer or, for example, Total Commander).

At the end of the work, you simply unmount the virtual disk, and no one will be able to access your data (who does not know the password). Wonderful thing.

For all the details of working with TrueCrypt for setting passwords on a flash drive, folder, or even the entire computer, see the links given just above. And remember that absolute protection does not exist (you can provide the password yourself under pressure), but among all other methods of data protection, this program is one of the most optimal options. IMHO.

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site

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You can set a password in WinRAR for any archive during its creation. Follow the instructions (or see how it's done at).

Step 1

Select the files you want to archive through the main WinRAR window by clicking on the “Add” button, or through the Windows Explorer context menu by clicking on the necessary files right-click and select “Add to archive...”.

Step 2

A window will open in which you can select archiving options, compression method and other settings. In order to set a password for the archive in WinRAR, click the “Set password…” button. Depending on the version of the archiver, it will be either in the same window or in the “Advanced” tab.

Step 3

Enter your password in the window that opens and click OK. Be sure to write it down somewhere, because if you forget the password, it will be almost impossible to recover it (you will only have to use the brute force method to check all combinations).

Step 4

Click “OK” again to create the archive. If the files you select have big size you will have to wait a few minutes. You can select the “No compression” compression method, then the process will take much less time.

After archiving is complete, you will have created an archive that can be opened without difficulty, but when you try to extract or view the contents of the files in it, it will require a password.

If you are faced with the task of simple, but at the same time reliable transfer of confidential information to another person, then think about using a password-protected archive. You can also set a password for the archive for protection purposes. important information on your computer or laptop. It is quite difficult to crack a password even using paid programs. Often, the whole point of working with programs designed to crack an archive password comes down to a simple enumeration of numbers, letters and words. This is why a good password (at least eight characters long, with numbers, letters and symbols like ^ or $) is almost impossible to crack.

In order to set our own password for the archive, we will use two archivers: WinRAR and 7-Zip. These programs are very popular and familiar to a wide range of users. Is our detailed guide will not leave you with any questions about setting a password for the archive and you will be able to protect any confidential information on your machine.

Most computer owners are accustomed to using the WinRAR program to archive any data. This archiver is paid, but the whole point of it being paid is that after 40 days free use A message will appear asking you to buy a license. The functional part of the program does not suffer from this in any way. Using the mouse, click on the file that we want to archive and securely protect with a password, and then select the “Add to archive” item.

After these steps, the WinRAR archiver window will appear on the screen. You need to come up with and enter a name for the future archive (if this is not done, the default name will be used, which coincides with the name of the archived file). Then click on the “Set password” item (on old version it is located in the “Advanced” tab).

Next, enter in the appropriate fields twice strong password(there can be no talk of any 123 or qwerty, since such passwords are cracked very quickly). If you are afraid of forgetting the password to the archive, then write it down somewhere in a notepad or text file.

We also strongly recommend checking the box next to “Encrypt file names”. If this checkbox is not checked, then your password-protected archive can be opened and the names of the folders and files that are located in it can be viewed. It will be impossible to download or open them without knowing the password, but the names will be displayed, which is unacceptable in some situations. To set a password for the archive, click “Ok”.

After this, an archive with a password will appear in the folder where the data we archived was located. You can safely write it to a flash drive or send it to someone by mail, without fear for the safety of the information in it. After creating the archive, the original file can be deleted.

To unzip the data, right-click on the archive and select “Extract to current folder.” Enter your password and click “OK”.

Now you know how to set a password for a WinRAR archive. Next, we'll look at the process of setting a password using 7-Zip.

How to put a password on a 7-Zip archive

Unfortunately, the 7-Zip archiver is less popular among users, although it is absolutely free and offers open source code. To set your password, launch 7-Zip and specify the files or folders you want to archive. Select the files and click on the “Add” button.

A window will appear on the screen in which you need to specify a name for the archive, enter the password twice and check the box next to the “Encrypt file names” item. To create the archive, click “Ok”.

Unzipping is also easy. Double-click to open the archive and enter the password.

Conclusion

As you can see, absolutely any user can set a password for the archive. It is very convenient and useful feature for the safety of important files and documents. It can be used in various situations.

WinRAR program

WinRAR- a brilliantly executed program. This is not only the best of archivers, but also generally an example of a user-friendly attitude. Working with the program, especially its latest versions, is an aesthetic pleasure.

The WinRAR program can be download on its manufacturer's website: www.rarsoft.com. Like other archivers, it belongs to the shareware software(shareware). Its distribution version can often be found in collections of utility software.

This version differs from the previous ones; well, you can find out in detail here: http://www.rarsoft.com/rarnew.htm. Latest versions WinRAR is also characterized by the fact that, like WinZip, it integrates with Windows Explorer. This provides a convenient opportunity to work through context menus.

The program is supplied as a single executable file wrar420ru.exe and is installed in the usual manner. During installation, a dialog box opens that allows you to specify installation parameters. In particular, here you can “link” the program with certain types of archive files - then when you double-click on their icons, the WinRAR program will automatically launch. Here you can specify where, when installing the program, its icons will be created.

It is important to understand that if you want to compress music files or photo and video files into an archive, the size of the archive will not change. Then the question arises - why is it necessary? archive edit files? The fact is that when archiving all files will be neatly packed into one file and protected when sent by mail (thereby saving

You from adding each file when downloading to your email for subsequent transfer). Everything will reach the recipient safe and sound.

Create WinRar archive with password It's actually not difficult. On any folder (which we want to password protect in Rar format), right-click and select add to archive. And go to the next window, in which we go to the tab - Advanced and click - Set password:

Next, be sure to check the box -> Encrypt file names:

Now you can create archives with a password, thanks to which the security of your files will be protected both in the office and at home. Remember, it will be able to protect your data - reliably. Do not lose your passwords; they may not be recovered and hacking is not possible.

Unpacking the received archive

As when describing the WinZip program, we will rely as much as possible on executing operations from the context menu, if possible without opening the program's working window. This approach is the most effective.

1. Place the resulting archive in the folder in which you would like to unpack it.

2. Open this folder and right-click on the file icon. IN context menu select WinRAR -> Extract to current folder. Here's the parameter< имя папки >matches the name of the archive file. Thus, when unpacking a file, a folder of the same name is created, in which all extracted files are located.

P.S. New plugin - when copied - the link will not work, it is only relevant for this site.