Now you can set your preferred compression level.

Next, choose your format – you can use any of the supported compression formats but I think it’s better to stick with the zip format which is pretty much universal. Or alternatively, click the Add button, browse to and select the files.

Create a Password Protected Archive with Bandizipĭrag and drop the files you want to protect into the Add Files to Archive box. I chose Bandizip as my default archive tool because it’s simple, free, and portable – three of my favorite adjectives when looking at software. In this guide I’m going to show you how to password protect files using the portable version of Bandizip but the process should be similar using any of the popular free archive tools. Almost all of these types of free tools will allow you to create a password protected archive. That program is an archive tool, such as 7-Zip, PeaZip, or Bandizip, which I’m guessing many users (if not most) would already have. However, there is still a way to password protect files in recent editions of Windows, provided you have a specific type of free, third party program on hand. There are plenty of free third party tools which offer to hide/lock files and folders but most come with some sort of limitation or security flaw – for example some can be quite easily overcome by simply booting into Safe Mode.

Microsoft touts each new operating system as more secure than the last, which is largely true, but then decides to do away with one of the most basic of security features… go figure! Microsoft has made some pretty dumb decisions over the years and among the dumbest must surely be dropping the feature which allowed users to natively password protect a zipped folder containing sensitive files.

Add password to zip file windows 10