Cool Stuff for PC: How to Create a Password Protected ZIP File

Every day we send out so much of data here and there that its security has become an issue now. It is a bigger concern, if your data is very confidential. So, what do you do when you want to transfer large amount of data safely?

Windows Operating Systems have a provision to compress and decompress any folder without using any external utility. So, this gives you a chance to add password to the ZIP file. This is to secure your data in it.

Procedure

So, if you want to ensure safety of your data and wish to make your zip folder password-protected, then follow the instructions given below:

First of all, locate the file that you wish to zip.
Once you have found the file, right click on the file. Now from the drop down menu select the option “Send To” as shown in the figure below.
Now from there, select the option compressed zipped folder as shown in the figure.
This will create a zip folder with the name of the file you have selected. As you can see in the figure below, the first New Folder is the original file and the next one is a zip file.
The zip file contains an extension .zip.
Now select all the files that you want to send in this folder and right click them and select “Copy” or CTRL+C.
Now select the zipped folder you have just created here “NewFolder.zip”. Now right click and select “Paste” or Ctrl+V.
This will paste all the files in the zipped folder.
Now that you are zipped folder is ready, let us make it password protected.
Right click the zip folder and select Explore. This will take you to a window. Here from the File menu select “Add a password “as shown in the figure above.
Now a small password box should pop up on the screen. Add the password and confirm it; select OK. You can see that in the figure below.