Password protecting files

[silverback]

I have just discovered, on my brand new Windows 10 machine, that Microsoft has removed the ability to password protect a file. Instead, I am instructed to encrypt it. However, when I attempt to encrypt the file, the option is greyed out, which I further discover is because I have Windows 10 Home edition, and encryption is not supported in this product.

Is there some third party software (recommended by Loungers, preferably) which I can use, please?

Thanks
Silverback

Hold on. I've just found a help page which says that I can encrypt a document with a password. File | Info | Protect document | Encrypt with Password. That seems to be what I want.

[HansV]

Upgrading to Windows 10 Pro might be your best option.

Third-party utilities will change the extension of the files, which makes it more difficult to manage them.
For example:
7-Zip, a free file compression utility that supports encrypting the compressed file with a password.
AxCrypt - the free version has some limitations compared to the commercial (subscription) version.

[HansV]

Hold on. I've just found a help page which says that I can encrypt a document with a password. File | Info | Protect document | Encrypt with Password. That seems to be what I want.

That is a good option for Office files (Word documents, Excel workbooks, PowerPoint presentations, Access databases), but it's not available for other file types.

[StuartR]

The options available to you depend on exactly why you are trying to encrypt the file.

• If you need to share the file securely across an insecure link, like email, then password protecting an office document or ZIP file is sensible.
• If you want to protect confidential data on your PC from being accessed by other people with physical access then creating an encrypted partition with a tool like Veracrypt might be appropriate

Tell us what you want to achieve and we may be able to come up with other potential ideas for you.

[Argus]

I was going to post that we perhaps would need some more info what you would like to achieve (how it's going to be used etc.); that's the most important question.

[silverback]

Duh! Of course, I should have stated what it was I wanted to achieve. As it is, the solution I found after my OP (File | Info | Protect document | Encrypt with Password) will do me nicely, as it's an Office Word file I want to protect.
Thanks to everyone for their contributions.
Silverback.

[BobH]

Not meaning to hijack silverback’s thread, but his question triggered me to ask about encrypting files before putting them in the cloud (Dropbox or any other network storage location.

If one wanted to do that, how should he go about it? The reason for encryption would simply for privacy and data protection Posted by the guy who has shot himself in the foot over and over again trying to do much simpler things.

[HansV]

I would compress the files with a password and upload the compressed files to the cloud. You can use a utility such as 7-Zip for this.

[BobH]

Thank you!