Almost anyone concerned with securing their information is familiar with how to protect important documents, such as the "protect workbook" option built into Microsoft Excel. What happens when you want to protect the entire folder, and it is stored on a Mac? I can show you how in a few simple steps.
1. Open Disk Utility, found in the Applications folder under “Utilities”
2. Choose “New” from the File drop-down menu, and then “Disk Image from Folder” from the sub-menu
3. Browse to where your folder is located, select it, and click “Image”
From here, a new window entitled “New Image from Folder" will pop up, like this:
4. Choose read/write from the Image format drop-down menu if you want to be able to modify its contents later. Otherwise, compressed is fine. Also, you may choose to encrypt the folder. I recommend 128-bit AES encryption. Save this.
The Disk Utility will now create a disk image (.dmg) file on your desktop. It will prompt you to create a password, and by default will have the “Remember password in my keychain” box checked. This defeats the purpose of securing the folder, so I recommend unchecking it. If you click on the disk image to open it after saving the password in your keychain, it will display the contents without asking for a password.
5. Click on “Ok”, and you now have a encrypted, password protected folder!
*On a final note, you may delete the original folder for security purposes. However, do so at your own risk. Your keychain is not storing the password, so you must take care to remember it. The .dmg file may also become corrupted, with no access to the folder you wanted to secure. As mentioned in earlier posts, always back-up your information with a separate device or service!
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