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: What are the files here?
VoiceOver: CFP underscore green humanities dot PDF.
Siddarth: One of my CFP files.
VoiceOver: conference PDF.
Siddarth: Apple's pages document, I was reading one of the guides here. So I have these two files. Suppose I want to lock this or I want to encrypt this with a password. How can I do that? Let me close this with command W. Let's open disk utility, command space for a spotlight.
VoiceOver: Spotlight.
Siddarth: And I'll type disk.
VoiceOver: P-I-S-K. Start up disk utility. Completion selected.
Siddarth: Yes. Let's hit enter on this.
VoiceOver: Finder. Disk utility. Disk utility. Window. Disk selection table.
Siddarth: All right. We are in disk utility. Let me hit V-O-M to open the menu.
VoiceOver: Apple menu.
Siddarth: right arrow we have to enter file menu disk utility menu another right file menu i'll press down arrow till i get new image sub menu new image sub menu let me press right arrow to open this menu new image sub menu blank image ellipsis command and no we don't want this image from folder ellipsis command shift n image from folder this is the option which we need let me hit return key or vivo
Siddarth: whatever you are comfortable with now we are in the standard um file uh how we open the files right so we need to select that folder here which we want to lock so let me interact here in dialogue open list view table i'll go to desktop date added now i'll interact again here scroll your vertical sidebar table inside bar downloads desktop document desktop yes i'm already on
VoiceOver: desktop, un-interact. Scroll area, interact.
Siddarth: I'll interact here another time in list view.
VoiceOver: Yes, this is the one we need, right?
Siddarth: So, Vivo space, un-interact. Choose button. So, I press Vivo plus right arrow. I'll hit enter on choose. Let's see what we get.
VoiceOver: It starts private files. Content selected. Save as. Edit text. Save as. Tags.
Siddarth: We got the save as. We'll go to right. We will write.
VoiceOver: Tags. Tags. Where? Desktop. Show more options. None. Encryption. Pop-up button.
Siddarth: We need to change this encryption pop-up. We need to change from none to 128.
VoiceOver: So let me hit view a space.
Siddarth: Yes. If I hit space on this or view a space on this.
VoiceOver: It's asking us to enter the password.
Siddarth: So basically there are two password fields here. One is the password and again a confirm password. Let me just type 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I'll press tab.
VoiceOver: Verify. Secure edit text.
Siddarth: Again, verify password.
VoiceOver: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Siddarth: If I press tab. Show password assistant button. I'll press tab again. Cancel button. Choose button. I'll hit the workspace and choose. 128 bit AES encryption. Encryption. Pop up.
Siddarth: We'll just go all the way to the end.
VoiceOver: Save button.
Siddarth: And we click on save.
VoiceOver: Collapse. Disclosure triangle. Creating folder disk image SIDARTH private files dot DMG. Running. Show details. Dimmed. Operation successful. Collapsed. Show the done. Done.
Siddarth: OK. Operation successful. It had done.
VoiceOver: Disk selection table.
Siddarth: OK. We'll close this. We don't need this anymore.
VoiceOver: Authentication.
Siddarth: Now, what happened is it creates a DMG file, an encrypted DMG file, To open that file, we need to enter the password.
VoiceOver: So there are two files here now on my desktop. This is the folder earlier which we had.
Siddarth: This is the encrypted folder. Let me view a space on this and let's see, will it ask a password?
VoiceOver: Whoa, so it's asking password.
Siddarth: Let me hit 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and enter. Let me check by interacting. Do we have our file?
VoiceOver: Well, we have the encrypted file. Now, I'll close this.
Siddarth: So we have a volume here. So now we can eject this volume by pressing command E. Okay.
VoiceOver: We have only folder. We don't want this folder as well. Let's delete.
Siddarth: And we have only. If I hit again, we will space.
VoiceOver: Okay.
VoiceOver: Enter a password.
Siddarth: Hope this short demo was helpful for you. If you have any questions, contact on my email ID. My email ID is S-I-D-D-A-R-T-H-M-A-H-A-J-A-N 15 at gmail.com. Have a good day.