How to Password-Protect and Encrypt a Folder on Your Mac

AppleVis Podcast

In this practical tutorial episode, Siddharth Mahajan walks listeners through the step-by-step process of encrypting a folder on a Mac using built-in macOS tools. This episode is perfect for anyone who needs to temporarily hand over their Mac to someone else but wants to keep personal or sensitive files secure.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why it’s important to secure private folders on your Mac
• How to create an encrypted disk image (.dmg) that password-protects your folder
• Detailed navigation through macOS Disk Utility to select and encrypt your folder
• How to set and confirm a password for your encrypted folder
• How to access your encrypted folder later by entering the password
• Best practices for managing and deleting the original unencrypted folder

Why This Matters: Sharing your Mac without proper privacy controls can risk exposing your personal documents, photos, and other sensitive files. Siddharth highlights how easy it is to leverage built-in macOS functionality to safeguard your data with strong AES encryption, giving you peace of mind.

Episode Highlights:

• Opening Disk Utility via Spotlight Search
• Using the “New Image from Folder” feature to create an encrypted disk image
• Selecting 128-bit AES encryption and setting a strong password
• Demonstration of mounting and unmounting the encrypted volume
• Tips on deleting the original folder after encryption to ensure privacy
• Siddharth’s contact info for follow-up questions

Useful Links:

• macOS Disk Utility: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201250
• Email Siddharth: [email protected]

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.

Siddarth: Are you in that situation where you need to give your Mac to someone for maybe a few hours or a few days, but worried about what if they might access my private files, my private folders? Of course, everyone has their own privacy, right? You might have private documents or messages or pictures, videos, whatever.

Siddarth: Do you know that we can lock or we can encrypt the folder on Mac with a password? Well, if you don't know that, yes, we can actually do that. How can we do that? That's what I'm here for. I'm Siddharth Mahajan. In this episode, I'll be demonstrating that. How can we encrypt a folder with a password on our Mac? So let's get started.

Siddarth: I'm on my desktop here.

VoiceOver: Siddharth Private Files folder.

Siddarth: This is my folder, Siddharth Private Files.

VoiceOver: Siddharth Private Files folder.

Siddarth: Let me press Vivo space to open.

VoiceOver: Finder has new window.

Siddarth: Okay, let me interact.

VoiceOver: In list view, table.

Siddarth…