Keeping your personal data password protected on your Mac is never a bad idea. It prevents any unwelcomed guests from getting access to your private data, such as your personal images, videos, or any text content. Luckily, it is very easy to lock your confidential data on your Mac with secure passwords to stop unwanted access.

Follow the simple 4-step process to password protect your folder easily in minutes.

Step 1 Open Disk Utility

Click Command + Shift + A to open the Applications folder. Open the Utility folder within Applications and then open Disk Utility.

Step 2 Create a password-protect folder

Click File, select New Image> Image from Folder. Select the folder you want to encrypt, and click Image.

Choose read/write if you want your folder to be edit-able (if not, just choose another format), and choose 128-bit AES encryption and Save.

Step3 Set your Password

Type in a strong and random password you remember, and have to make sure Remember password in my keychain is NOT checked, else it won’t ask for the users to enter and password, and the whole purpose of encrypting your folder will be in vain.

You've turned your folder into a locked disk image! You can delete the original folder now if you want to free some disk space. Just don't delete that .DMG file!

Step 4 Access your Password-protected folder

To access the encrypted disk image, just double-click the .dmg file to mount it in the Finder. Always make sure the box Remember password in my keychain unchecked.

After you mount the disk image, you’re able to access the folder as normal. Now, you can drag any files in the folder under encrypted protection.

After you’re done working with the folder and want it to be password protected again, just unmount the folder from Finder.