How to hide a folder

Posted in Tips and Tricks by Abhinab On September 23, 2011. No comments

Scared every time your cousin borrows your Laptop, or may be your young nephew wants to use your computer. May be you have a photograph of your girlfriend and you want to hide it from all family members. Some people are so concerned about privacy that they carry a portable device with them where ever they go. I don’t think attaching a 2.5 ” Hard drive permanently to your body makes any logic. So what can you do to make your data more secure or if possible locked and encrypted so that none other than you can access it? Well, there are many software and programs depending on the level of protection you require for your files. Here in this article we will show you some simple tricks and a free code to hide a folder.

How to hide a folder (Meant for Normal Users)

Under least protection situations it is advisable to hide a folder rather than using a program to password protect a folder. So where are hidden folders and how can you hide them is the new question that’s running through your mind. You would be surprised to know that there are hidden folders in every drive of your system. Some of them are System files and some of them are related to keep a tab of undelete items inside the recycle bin so that you can recover those files later if you want to. To hide a folder just follow this simple steps
  • Select the folder you want to hide
  • Right click the folder and select “Properties”
  • Find the check box beside “Hidden” tab in the attributes section.
  • Select the check-box. Press Apply.
  • Now if you have multiple files inside the folder you want to hide then the system will ask you if you want to apply the “hidden” attribute to those files as well.
  • Select “Apply changes to this folder only “
  • Press OK and then OK again.
This action will hide the file from the normal window view. To unhide the hidden folder. Follow this simple steps.
  • Open my computer
  • Select ”Tools” from the menu bar and then select folder options.
  • Go to view tab and select the radio button beside “Show hidden files and folder” option
  • Press Apply –> OK
Now browse to the place where you have hidden your file and you can see it there. Remember this action will lead all the hidden files to unhide in the normal window. You need to hide them again as they wont unhide automatically. To again unhide them follow the same steps mentioned above just change the selected radio button to “Do not show hidden files and folders “.

How to hide a folder (Meant for Advanced Users)

Do not use this method if the folder you want to hide contains exe, bat, ini or other such system  file extensions. This technique will teach you how to hide folders inside system files.
Most sceptics would say that this is not advisable as this method interacts with the system file architecture but I just don’t believe them. Storing a file inside a root directory will never
create any conflicts with the system file working or functionalities. we are just dumping some extra files inside our root directory, just as simple as that.
  • Go to “start”
  • Find “RUN” panel
  • Type %Systemroot% and press enter
  • This will open the “C:/Windows” directory
  • Make a new folder there and name it “My Files” (You can name it anything but not something like System or Driver or any other existing folder name)
  • Transfer all your files withing this directory

Password protect and hide folder using registry

This is simple trick ton prevent the average person from opening your folder or to fool them so that they avoid it as a fake System file. Just follow this instruction -
  • Download the code from this page.
  • Copy the above code in your notepad and save it as key.bat. You can select any name of your choice.
  • After you have saved this file you will find that it has changed to a different icon.
  • Double click this file and you will have folder called “locker” created in the same directory
  • Transfer all files that you want to hide inside this folder.
  • Again Double click the batch file. Select “Y” and press enter.
  • This will hide the “Locker folder” and will also encrypt it with the registry value
  • If you want to view the folder agai then double click the batch file and enter the password you have entered.*
P.S: * You can set the password by replacing the part of the code which says, “type you password here”.
Do Remember to hide the key.bat in some different directory or drive, so that no one can find and edit it, to get to your “Locker” folder.

Don’t forget to post back your own personal experience with it. We would love to hear it from you.

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