Password – How to Password Protect a Folder Without Disk Images

disk-utilitydmgfolderspassword

Is this possible?
I know you can protect a .dmg file, but is there a more convenient solution, by using a third party application?

Best Answer

The only way I can think of to do this would be to create a new user with the password you want to use for the folder, then use chmod to set rights on the folder to 700, then you'll use that new user's username and password to access the file.

Related Solutions

Image files made with Disk Utility creates parent folder

I'm pretty sure you created the image wrong. When you create the image in Disk Utility, it's very important that you specify the source correctly. I'm not certain I remember exactly right, so you should test this before you trust the results, but here's the process as I remember it:

In Disk Utility's sidebar, select the DVD's entry. IIRC, it'll actually list two entries in the sidebar: the DVD itself, and then indented under that the installer volume ("Mac OS X Install DVD" or something like that. You want the DVD entry, not the volume entry under it.

IIRC older versions of Disk Utility would actually list three entries: the DVD, a session under that, and the volume under that. In this case, I'm pretty sure it's the session (the middle entry) you want.
Under the File menu, choose "New" > "Image from disk2" (or whatever the disk ID is). This tells Disk Utility you want a raw device image, not just image the files contained in the disk.
In the save dialog, set the Image Format to "DVD/CD master"

I think that procedure will work, but to be sure it's best to rename the file from ".cdr" to ".iso", copy it to your Windows computer, burn it to a DVD-R, and actually try booting the Mac from it. Note that if you mount the .iso on Windows you will not see anything like what you expect -- IIRC the 10.5 install DVDs are actually in a hybrid format that contains a Windows-readable driver disk for Boot Camp, and a Mac-readable (& bootable) installer volume. So if you mount it on Windows, you'll see Windows drivers, not a Mac installer. (BTW, this is also true of the original DVD, so try mounting that on your Windows computer to check my memory.)

MacOS – Encrypt folder on Mac without dmg file so that the contents can expand in size

You can use a sparse bundle which will expand when the contents increases in size.

Enable advanced image options in Disk Utility.

defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility advanced-image-options 1

Open Disk Utility and select File → New → Disk Image from Folder… or press ⌘N.
Select the folder that you want to encrypt and press Image.
Choose sparsebundle as the Image Format, and choose the level of encryption you require.
Choose a password to encrypt the image and click OK.

If, after removing some files from the sparse bundle, you wish to decrease its size, you can compact it:

hdiutil compact /path/to/folder.sparsebundle

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Image files made with Disk Utility creates parent folder

MacOS – Encrypt folder on Mac without dmg file so that the contents can expand in size

Related Question