Can I Password Protect a Folder on Google Drive?

Privacy is incredibly important in this day and age. It has become easier than ever to be hacked, and have all of your online information compromised. Nowadays, many people have a lot of personal information, photos, and documents within their Google Drive accounts.

In order to keep this information confidential and safe from being seen by the wrong eyes, you may be wondering if you can password protect a folder in Drive.

The answer to this question is both yes and no. Google Drive itself does not have its own feature to password protect folders. However, there are ways you can still set this in place by encrypting or by using a 3rd party software.

Like anything, there are some pros and cons to these methods, as well as some exclusions as to what can actually be password protected - this is something we will discuss more below. But all-in-all, this is a super handy feature that could potentially keep your documents and personal information safe if your Google Drive account gets hacked.

While it may seem like a pain to install these round-about methods for password protection, it may want to be something that you consider if you have a lot of important documents stored in the cloud. Whether you just don’t want your account getting in the wrong hands, or to protect important personal and business files - this is something to think about.

Continue reading below to learn the different ways you can protect your Google Drive files with a password:

How Do I Protect My Google Drive With a Password?

There are several different ways that you can protect your Google Drive documents with a password. However, all of these methods will include some kind of 3rd party act on your part - since Google doesn’t have a password protection feature of its own.

So here are three main ways you may consider placing a password on your Google Drive folders and documents:

Encrypt Files or Folders. This first method is going to require a little bit of tech knowledge and savyness. This method will require a USB or other storage device to back up your data. Follow the steps below to learn how you can encrypt your files before uploading so that they can be password protected.

Step 1: Choose the folder that you want to encrypt and right-click on it. Then select “Properties” from the menu.

Step 2: Select the “Advanced” button under the “General” tab.

Step 3: In the “Advanced Attributes” window, go to “Compress or Encrypt attributes”, and check the box of Encrypt contents to secure your data.

Step 4: Click “OK”.

Step 5: Next, click “Apply”.

Step 6: In the pop window, select “Apply changes” to this folder as the only option. Click “OK”.

Step 7: Next, the instruction will ask you to back up your file encryption certificate and key.

Step 8: Choose “Back up now”. Then input the password and upload encrypted files to Google Drive.

As you can see, this process is relatively easy, but will still take some time - as you want your folders already put together and ready to be encrypted. But once you get in the habit of encrypting it will get easier.

Make sure when you select a password for your folders, that you choose a different one for each folder, and that it is completely unique from anything that you use anywhere else. This will help protect your files from hackers or potential threats.

Install Folder Protection Software. There are several different 3rd party add-ons that you can attach to your Google Drive to enable a password protection feature.

One of the most popular and trusted software that you could install very easily, would be EaseUS LockMyFile. This software is only available for PC, so password protection wouldn't be available on your mobile devices.

With EaseUS LockMyFile, you can encrypt and lock pictures and other data on a local disk, USB drive, and other external storage devices. However, If you have installed some software simultaneously, you will have to uninstall other tools because multiple software installations can create conflicts with the password program.

This program has a free download option on Windows PC computers but also has a paid version that has many different features. LockMyFile not only will encrypt Drive folders, but will also secure images, and data on a local disk, USB drive, and other external storage devices.

This would be a very helpful software to consider installing if you have a lot of sensitive data and information in your Google Drive that you want to make sure it secure at all times.

Share File Links in Google Drive. Google Drive doesn’t have a password protection feature that will prompt you to insert a password in order to view the contents. However, Google does have another form of security and privacy by “sharing a link.”

You can switch the privacy settings of your files so that nobody can view the documents except those who are given a link to the contents. Once the person has viewed your files, you can always change the permissions back to “everyone” or private so that they no longer have access.

While this does not protect your files from being hacked or viewed by somebody who is looking at your PC firsthand, it is still a good way to have a sense of security and privacy when sharing files with others.

Here is a step-by-step process of how you can share links with people in Google Drive:

Step 1: Sign in to your Google Drive account.

Step 2: Select the folder you want to share, and right-click “Share”.

Step 3: Click the “Get shareable link”.

Step 4: Click the “Down arrow” next to the “Anyone with the link”.

Step 5: Decide whether people can edit or view folders.