It’s also very popular and is free during the trial period. When you click “OK,” the app will zip and password-protect the files you selected.Ī third option is 7-Zip. Select the Zip format and click the “Set Password” option. Alternatively, you can right-click files on your computer and select “Add to Archive” to launch WinRAR.

Navigate to the ones you want to zip up and click the “Add” button for each one. When you open WinRAR, it displays a list of files and folders.

Setting a password is also very easy.įirst, download and install WinRAR. WinRAR is another popular utility that offers a free trial period. Click the “Encrypt” option and then drag a file into the NewZip.zip area of the window.Open WinZip and click “Create/Share” in the Options menu to open the Actions menu.Once you’ve installed the software, password-protecting your files is a three-step process: You can download and install WinZip for free for a few weeks before you’re asked to pay for it. WinZip is a very popular app for password-protecting Zip files. Thankfully, there are plenty of free utilities available online that can password-protect Zip files.

To set a password on your Zip files, you’ll need to get a third-party app or utility. However, Microsoft still doesn’t offer an option for password protection. Windows 11, 10, and previous versions have a native utility for making Zip folders (i.e., “zipping” files) and then extracting the files from that Zip folder once received. One way to strengthen security of Zip files is by password-protecting them, in the same way you can password-protect PDF files or other documents. As such, there is a risk of compromise or misuse even when sharing files between known parties. Unfortunately, this simple compression technology lacks basic security. Rather than share one large file or several files one-by-one, you can Zip the files to compress the size, and then share the single Zip file. While the technology behind them is quite old, Zip file technology is still great for compressing and sharing large files or multiple files at once via easy-to-transport folders. Zip files are a fast and easy option when you need to share large or multiple files all at once, usually via email.

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