How to Create a Password Protected Folder in Windows Without Any Software

Sometimes we don’t want our friends or family members to touch some of our personal or important files stored on our laptops. The biggest problem happens that we can’t always hide our Windows password from our brothers, sisters, or other family members.

So, in this case, you can create a password-protected folder in your Windows computer to put all your important files inside.

Via this article, I’m going to guide you on how to create a password-protected folder on your Windows laptop without using any software.

However, there are many software available on the Internet for the same but they sometimes might be risky. If due to any reason the software gets deleted from your system, you might lose all your important files.

In this tutorial, I will tell you a very simple way to create password protected folder in Windows that doesn’t need you to install any software.

Steps – Creating the Password Protected Folder in Windows

Creating a password-protected folder in Windows can be done by plenty of methods. Following are the steps for the simplest method ever.

Step 1: Copy the following code and paste it to Notepad.

cls
@ECHO OFF
title Folder Private
if EXIST "AUI Locker" goto UNLOCK
if NOT EXIST Private goto MDLOCKER
:CONFIRM
echo Are you sure you want to lock the folder(Y/N)
set/p "cho=>"
if %cho%==Y goto LOCK
if %cho%==y goto LOCK
if %cho%==n goto END
if %cho%==N goto END
echo Invalid choice.
goto CONFIRM
:LOCK
ren Private "AUI Locker"
attrib +h +s "AUI Locker"
echo Folder locked
goto End
:UNLOCK
echo Enter password to unlock folder
set/p "pass=>"
if NOT %pass%== PASSWORD_GOES_HERE goto FAIL
attrib -h -s "AUI Locker"
ren "AUI Locker" Private
echo Folder Unlocked successfully
goto End
:FAIL
echo Invalid password
goto end
:MDLOCKER
md Private
echo Private created successfully
goto End
:End

Step 2: In the above code, replace the key PASSWORD_GOES_HERE with the password you want to use to unlock the folder. For example if you want the password to be 123456, the line should look like this:

if NOT %pass%== 123456 goto FAIL

Step 3: Once you’re done with the code, save this Notepad file in .bat format such as locker.bat. Make sure to change the Save as type: to All Files (*.*).

Step 4: Now, double click the locker.bat file and a folder named “Private” will be created. You can put any of the important files that you want to password-protect in this folder.

Step 5: It’s time to lock out this folder to password-protect your important files. So, again double-click on locker.bat file and it will prompt you to answer are you sure want to lock this folder? Press Y and hit Enter. The “Private” named folder will be locked/hidden.

Step 6: Now, you would be thinking about how you can get to that folder again. To do so, you need to double-click on the locker.bat file once again, and it will ask you to enter the password you chose in the code (Step 1 – Step 2). As soon as you’ll enter the password, the folder will again be visible in front of you.

That’s all about creating a password-protected folder on a Windows computer without using any external software. But, still here’s one thing to be noted this method isn’t secure enough.

Anybody can hack the password by simply opening the locker.bat file in an editor such as Notepad. So, it’s just a very unsafe way to protect your important files. If you just wanna hide folders and files from those who don’t know about this trick, you can go for it.

However, you can simply hide a folder on your Windows computer by customizing the folder properties and folder options and make a folder invisible by customizing the folder icon.

Read Also: How To Protect PDF Files With A Password For Free