Tutorial:
Encrypt and Password Protect your Files and Folders
SafeHouse Explorer, works something like this. It
creates a hidden storage area on your disk to hold all the files that you want
to protect. These files and folders are hidden from normal view and will only
become visible when you enter the correct password.
Here’s a more detailed tutorial on how you can
protect your files with SafeHouse Explorer.
Step 1:
Download and install SafeHouse Explorer to your hard-drive.
The software works with XP, Vista and Windows 7
(both 32 and 64-bit editions). It is also portable so you may run it directly
without installation.
Step 2:
Once the installation is complete, click the “New Volume” button to create your
hidden storage that will house your various files and folders.
You may either create one large volume to store all
the “private” files or you can create multiple smaller-size volumes each
corresponding to the type of files that they’ll store. For instance, you may
have one volume for storing confidential documents and spreadsheets while
another one could be for hiding those “personal” pictures and so on.
Choose a volume size based on the size of the
folders that you’ll be storing inside that volume. The “Pre-initialize Volume
with Random Data” basically means that your virtual drive will be filled with
random data if there aren’t enough files to fill complete that volume. Use the
default “on” setting.
Step 3:
Now that your volume is created, open Windows Explorer (Win+E) and you’ll see a
new “virtual drive” under My Computer. Just drag and drop any of your folders
and files into this virtual drive and they’ll instantly get protected using
encryption.
Once you have added all the files to the
“protected” volume, make sure you delete them from the original location as the
original copy is unencrypted and therefore anyone can open it without requiring
a password.
Step 4:
Switch to SafeHouse Explorer and choose File –> Close Volume to lock up the
files. Congratulations. You have successfully created your first encrypted and
password-protected folder on your computer that you can only access after
typing the correct password.
To access your protected files, simply navigate to
the folder that houses your SafeHouse volumes and double-click the
corresponding volume file to open it. Type the password and you should see all
the files and folders under a virtual drive in Windows Explorer again.
Encryption is obviously a complex subject for most
of us but what you’ll really like about SafeHouse Explorer is that it hides all
the technical details from the end user.
Encrypt your
USB Flash Drive and Email Attachments
The tool will also be extremely handy for people
who carry around important and confidential files on USB drives and external
hard disks.
Instead of copying files and folders to your
external disk directly, first encrypt these files on the hard-drive (as
explained above) and then copy the encrypted volume (the .sksk file) to your
external disk. Now even if the drive gets misplaced, the finder won’t be able
to read any of your files and, since the software uses 256-bit encryption, it
will be nearly impossible for anyone to crack your password.
Similarly, you can add an extra layer of protection
to your sensitive email attachments with SafeHouse. Encrypt the files, send
them as email attachments and communicate the password to the recipient over
another medium (like phone).
