Advertisement An encrypted USB flash drive is the safest way to carry sensitive files. Unfortunately, you cannot password protect your entire USB flash drive, like you can password protect your PC or phone. Secure tools all work with encryption. Unless you want to invest in an encrypted flash drive with hardware encryption, you can use freeware applications to achieve a similar level of USB protection. This article summarizes the easiest ways to password protect or encrypt files and folders on a USB flash drive. Rohos Mini Drive: Create an Encrypted Partition Many tools can encrypt and password protect your data. Most, however, require Administrator rights to run on any given computer. Rohos Mini Drive, however, works whether or not you possess Administrator rights on the target computer.
Feb 26, 2013 - How can I encrypt a USB drive and have it readable in OS 10.8, and Windows Vista and 7? For various reasons, including proprietary software.
The free edition can create a hidden, encrypted, and password-protected partition of up to 8GB on your USB flash drive. The tool uses automatic on-the-fly encryption with AES 256-bit key length. Thanks to the portable Rohos Disk Browser, which you install directly to your flash drive, you won’t need encryption drivers on the local system.
Subsequently, you can access the protected data anywhere. VeraCrypt features using multiple different encryption algorithms, including 256-bit AES, Serpent, and TwoFish, as well as combinations of these. Like Rohos Mini Drive, it can create a virtual encrypted disk that mounts like a real disk, but you can also encrypt entire partitions or storage devices.
Download VeryCrypt Portable and install it on your USB drive. When you launch the portable app, it will show you all available drive letters. Choose one and click Create Volume. This will launch the VeraCrypt Volume Creation Wizard.
To encrypt your entire USB flash drive, select Encrypt a non-system partition/drive and click Next. In the next step, you can choose from a Standard or a Hidden VeraCrypt volume. Using a hidden volume reduces the risk that someone forces you to reveal your password. Note that you’ll have to Formatting a USB drive is no different than formatting any other drive.
But how often have you actually formatted a drive and did you ever wonder what the various options mean? If you want to create a Hidden VeraCrypt volume. We’ll proceed with the Standard VeraCrypt volume. In the next window, click Select Device, choose your removable disk, confirm with OK, and click Next. To encrypt the entire USB drive, select Encrypt partition in place and click Next.
VeryCrypt will warn that you should have a backup of the data, in case something goes wrong during encryption. Now select the Encryption and Hash Algorithm; you can go with the default settings. Now you get to set your Volume Password. In the next step, your random mouse movements will determine the cryptographic strength of the encryption.
Now choose your Wipe Mode; the more wipes, the safer. In the final window, click Encrypt to start the encryption. Download: Note: An alternative to VeraCrypt Portable is, a portable app that lets you sync, backup, and secure your files. If you’re using Windows 10 Professional, Business, or Enterprise, you can also use to encrypt your drives. SecurStick: Create a Safe Zone on Your USB Drive This tool is a product of the German computer magazine c’t. It does not require installation and will work with Windows, Linux, and Mac without admin rights. To set it up, however, you have to run an EXE file from the flash drive you wish to encrypt.
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To set up SecurStick, download and unpack the ZIP archive, then copy the EXE file onto your USB stick. Running the EXE file will launch a command prompt and browser window. Enter a password and click Create to install the Safe Zone.
Next time you launch the SecurStick EXE file, you’ll hit a login window. Logging in mounts the Safe Zone. Any files you copy into the SafeZone are automatically encrypted. Note that closing the command prompt window will close your Safe Zone session. The easiest way to completely remove SecurStick from your flash drive is to format the drive.
Download: Note: Don’t be put off by the German download page! The tool’s interface was fully ported to English, as shown above. How to Encrypt Your Flash Drive on a Mac If you’re using a Mac, you don’t need a third-party tool to encrypt your USB flash drive. First, you need to format the flash drive with Apple’s HFS+ file system. Note that this will delete all files stored on it, meaning you should back them up. From the Disk Utility app, pick your flash drive and click Erase.
In the popup window, specify the file format, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and click Erase in the bottom right to format the drive. Now you’re ready to create an encrypted flash drive. Simply right-click the drive in Finder, select Encrypt, and add a password.
The process starts instantly and can take a few minutes, depending on the size of your USB stick. Shortly, you’ll have an encrypted and password protected USB drive. Cryptsetup: Encrypt Your USB Drive on Linux Cryptsetup is a free function to set up cryptographic volumes using AES 256-bit encryption.
It’s available from the standard Linux repository. Note: You should not use this tool if you intend on using the encrypted files outside of Linux. Moreover, accessing your encrypted flash drive requires a Cryptsetup installation. To encrypt your USB stick on Linux, you need to install both the Gnome disk utility and Cryptsetup from sudo apt-get. If you’re using Ubuntu, it should already be installed. Next, launch Disks from the desktop, look for your flash drive, and select to format the drive or a single partition with the encryption option.
At this point, you’ll also choose a password. Note that you have to overwrite all existing files. Reference: If you use Ubuntu Linux, please refer to our complete Did you know that you can protect your personal files on Linux by encrypting your files and folders? Here's how to do that using Ubuntu and GnuPG. How to Save Individual Files With a Password As mentioned above, you can’t safely password protect your entire USB stick without using encryption.
However, if you shy away from the time-consuming encryption process for entire folders and need a really quick way to only protect a few selected files, you can simply save those with a USB password. Many programs, including Word and Excel, allow you to. For example, in Word, while the document is open, go to File Info, expand the Protect Document menu, and select Encrypt with Password. Now enter your password and confirm it to protect your document. Finally, save your document and don’t forget the password.
To password protect PDF files on your USB flash drive, you can use, which also comes as a portable app. How to Create a Password-protected File Archive Archive tools like can also encrypt and password protect your files with AES-256. Install and run 7-Zip, right-click the file or folder on your USB drive, and select 7-Zip Add to Archive. In the Add to Archive window, choose the Archive format and add a password. Click OK to start the archiving and encryption process. Download: Your Personal Files, Protected and Encrypted Now you know how to password protect and encrypt your USB drive on Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can also.
And have you yet? If you have We’ve all used USB sticks to transport files between computers and back up our files, but there are other cool things you can do with a USB stick., you could do something useful with them! Explore more about:,.
We all carry around USB flash drives in our pockets or on our keychains. What if it got lost or stolen and somebody suddenly had access to all of your personal files? Password protect your flash drive to avoid taking that chance.
Some of us keep very important and sensitive information on our USB flash drives. And yet we walk around with them all day risking that they might somehow fall into the wrong hands. Let’s find out how to lock down the files on these drives to keep them from prying eyes. If you only use your USB flash drive on Macs and not Windows-based PCs, there is a very easy way to password protect your data.
It involves creating an encrypted disk image, which is basically a storage container for your files. Everything inside the disk image is accessible only to users who know the password that unlocks it. Don’t be frightened by the number of steps listed below – I chose to be overly thorough in some of my explanations to avoid confusion.
The actual work that needs to be done by you will only take a couple minutes. The first step is to attach a USB flash drive to your Mac. This tutorial assumes there are not currently any files on the drive. If there are, temporarily copy and paste them all in a folder on your Desktop. Then copy and paste them back to the flash drive once the following steps are completed. Launch Disk Utility (Applications Utilities). Find your USB flash drive in the list of devices on the left.
Select it and then click on the Erase tab. Choose “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” from the Format menu and type something of your choice in the Name field. Click the Erase button towards the bottom.
Please note this will permanently delete any data on the drive. Make sure you’ve made a copy of important documents before doing this. Once the drive has finished reformatting, go to File New Blank Disk Image in the menu bar. In the window that comes up, enter a file name next to Save As. For example, I typed “Files”. Choose your USB flash drive from the Where drop-down menu.
Re-type your file name in the Name field. The Size field requires some thought. To take advantage of all your USB drive’s storage space, enter a custom size that is slightly smaller than its full capacity. Of course, you can make the disk image any size you want – as long as it is smaller than the drive’s maximum capacity. Just remember that a 500MB disk image on a 2GB USB drive, for example, will only hold 500MB of password protected files before it gets full. The other 1.5GB will be usable, but files placed there will not be encrypted.
Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from the Format menu. Be sure to pick either 128-bit or 256-bit AES encryption from the Encryption menu. This is required to protect your files. Choose “Single Partition – Apple Partition Map” from the Partitions menu. Select “Read/write disk image” under Image Format, then click the Create button. After the encrypted disk image has been created, it is ready for use!
Now when you connect your USB flash drive to a Mac and view its contents in Finder, you will see a DMG disk image file. Double-click this DMG file, enter the password, and it will be mounted for use.
Copy, paste, save, and delete files here like you would anywhere else. The one important thing to remember is to eject the disk image first, then the flash drive, before disconnecting it from the computer. This will prevent data corruption and loss. With that said, you’ve got a fully-functioning USB flash drive with data that is encrypted and password protected for your access only. Why do you recommend this method, and not do the full Disk Utiity encryption, i.e. When you erase the disk/stick/whatever, choose ‘encryption’, which erases and prompts you to choose a password. One advantage in using Disk Utility’s full encryption erase process is that once you have done it, you can pick an individual folder(s) and DOUBLE LOCK them by doing the Finder /disc image security protocol suggested in the article.
So you first have to enter your password just to open the disk or stick, then you ALSO have to enter (preferably a different) a password to open the super-secure folders. About MacYourself MacYourself was established in July 2008 by founders (and Apple enthusiasts) Ant and Frankie P., who wanted to create a tips & tricks site geared towards the average or new Apple product user. The name itself was an accident, shouted by Frankie P. In a moment of frustration when he couldn’t think of anything clever. Immediately, a light went off in Ant’s head and he eventually convinced Frankie P. That it wasn’t as ridiculous as it first seemed.
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