Folder Password Protector Folder Password Protector
4.5 · 837 votes

Download Folder Password Protector for Windows 10 and 11

Password Protect Folder on Windows 10, 11, hide it from File Explorer when you want, and encrypts what is inside with AES-256.

   
 Download for Free
Windows 11 / 10Free trial, no sign-up
Folder Password Protector Screenshot.
Windows has no switch that puts a password on a folder. The usual choices are EFS, which ties a folder to your Windows account instead of a password, and BitLocker, which encrypts a whole drive. SoftOrbits Folder Password Protector lets you pick a folder and set a password. Anyone who does not know it cannot open the folder.

How to Password Protect Folder on Windows 10, 11

Install the app.
1

Install the app

Download the Folder Password Protector. The 68.5 MB installer runs on Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit, and installs no kernel driver.

Set the master password.
2

Set the master password

On the first start, the app asks for a master password and shows your recovery key once. Print it or save it outside the folder you are about to protect.

Add a folder.
3

Add a folder

Drag the folder into the window or press Add folder. The installer can also add a lock command to the File Explorer context menu. Decide whether to hide the folder as well.

Lock it, open it when you need it.
4

Lock it, open it when you need it

Press Lock on the folder, or Lock all when you protect several. The app rechecks the result afterwards and reports a folder as locked only when the check passes. Unlocking takes your password and one click.

The folder you close today should open tomorrow.

The folder you close today should open tomorrow

The most installed folder locker in the Microsoft Store has a familiar complaint in its reviews. People lose their own documents to the tool meant to protect them, and then nobody helps them get those documents back. People do not worry about weak crypto. Folder Password Protector was designed against that failure mode.

  • Every action is checked on disk afterwards, not announced by a message box.
  • Decrypted files come back byte for byte, verified by SHA-256 after every run.
  • Home editions are supported, and that is exactly where the built-in checkbox is missing.
  • A refusal names one of 15 reasons instead of showing one generic error.
  • The Activity log records what happened, never the names of the documents it touched.
  • Nobody sees what you protect until the master password is typed.
   
 Download for Free

What the Password Protect Folder tool for Windows 10, 11 does

Instant lock

A lock here is a deny rule written straight into the permissions of the folder. Nothing is copied, moved or repacked, so the amount of data changes nothing. In our own run, 50 folders were locked in 319 ms and opened again in 39 ms. The rule survives a reboot. The Password Protect Folder on Windows 10, 11 app drops one 128-byte state file and touches nothing else.

Hide a folder, or leave it in plain sight

Hiding is a separate switch from protection. Keep the folder visible but closed, or take it out of File Explorer entirely. You can put a password on the folder without hiding it.

Real AES-256 encryption

When an access rule is not enough, encrypt the folder. Files are encrypted one by one with AES-256-GCM, and the key comes from your password through Argon2id. Each file grows by exactly 64 bytes. Progress shows an ETA, the run can be stopped at any moment, and every file is written to a temporary copy and swapped in only after it is complete.

A recovery key, not your inbox

The recovery key is generated once, shown once, and can be printed or saved to a file. It is not tied to your hardware, your mailbox or our server. A new motherboard or a clean Windows install does not lock you out of your data. We never see that key and cannot restore it for you.

Right-click in File Explorer

Lock a folder straight from its context menu without starting the app first. Drag a folder onto the window instead of hunting for it in a dialog. The app can relock everything on exit or after an idle timeout.

A shredder that admits its limits

The Shredder tab deletes files past recovery with a configurable number of overwrite passes. On an SSD the old copy can survive anyway, because wear leveling and TRIM move it out of reach of any overwrite, and the app says so on the screen where you run it.

Folder Password Protector
Folder Password ProtectorDownload the Folder Password Protector Software, add one folder and lock it in a click. One folder with up to 30 files stays free forever.
 Download

Who needs Folder Password Protector Tool

One PC, several people

On a home computer, tax scans, medical papers and a spreadsheet of passwords can end up in a folder that anyone in the room can open. One protected folder is enough without creating separate Windows users and moving everything around.

progressive-webapps/apis/offline-first Created with Sketch.

Laptops that leave the house

Students and field staff put a laptop down in a library, an office or a hotel room. A lock closes the folder in a second. Encryption keeps the content unreadable even if the drive is pulled out and read on another machine.

A PC on its way to a repair shop

Service visits, upgrades, or handing an old machine to a colleague. Encrypt a folder before the computer leaves your hands, and keep the recovery key with you, not on that disk.

Folder Password Protector
Folder Password Protector
Price
from $ 29.99 / month
Version
3.2
File Size
68.5 Mb
Last updated on
30/08/26
System Requirements
  • Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7 (32/64 bit)
  • Intel i3, AMD Ryzen 5 or above
  • 4 GB of RAM or above
  • NVIDIA® GeForce® series 8 and 8M, Intel® HD Graphics 2000, Quadro FX 4800, Quadro FX 5600, AMD Radeon™ R600, Mobility Radeon™ HD 4330, Mobility FirePro™ series, Radeon™ R5 M230 or higher graphics card with up-to-date drivers
  • 1280 × 768 screen resolution, 32-bit color
  • 1 GB of free hard disk space or above

Frequently Asked Questions

Windows has EFS, the 'Encrypt contents to secure data' checkbox in folder properties, but it binds the folder to your Windows account rather than to a password. Anyone signed into that account opens it without being asked anything. On plenty of installations, the checkbox is grayed out or absent. BitLocker encrypts an entire drive or partition, not a single folder.

Folder Password Protector works with Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, including Home. EFS is not part of that edition.

A locked folder has two ways back: the recovery key or the app itself. Unlock clears the deny rule even when its own state file is gone, and an administrator can always drop that rule from the folder's Security tab. An encrypted folder has one way back, the recovery key. If both the password and the key are gone, so is the data. The app states this on screen before encryption starts.

It stays where it is, under its own name. Locking never renames a folder or hides it inside a container. If a folder is still locked once the app is gone, install the app again and press Unlock, or clear the deny rule in the folder's Security tab. Encrypted folders need the password or the recovery key.

Lock is for daily privacy at home or in the office. Encryption is for when the drive itself can end up in other hands. A lock is an access rule inside Windows, instant on any folder size and stable across reboots. It does not survive booting the machine from another disk, and an administrator can take ownership of the folder. Encryption makes the files unreadable without your password, but it costs time on large folders.

No. A lock writes rules on the folder, not on the files inside, so a folder with one document and a folder with a terabyte of video close in the same fraction of a second. Encryption is the opposite case: it reads and rewrites every file, so the time grows with the amount of data.

The limit is one protected folder with up to 30 files. Every function keeps working inside that limit, from locking and hiding to encryption, the shredder and the context menu. Opening and decryption are never limited, not by the license, not by a trial period and not after a reinstall.

Your files never leave your computer. There is no cloud backup, no mail recovery, no analytics and no advertising SDK inside the package. The program goes online only to activate a license, and to send a support report if you ask for one yourself. Neither carries your files.

An SSD cannot provide the same certainty as a hard drive. An SSD moves data between cells and frees them in the background, so overwriting the address of a file does not prove the old copy is unreachable. When the data is that sensitive, encrypt the folder from the start instead of shredding it later.

You can hide a folder, but hiding on its own is a thin veil. Anyone who turns on hidden items in File Explorer or types the path into the address bar walks in. Hiding pays off next to a password.

Twenty, English and Russian among them, and the language follows your Windows setting on the first start. Error messages are translated as well, which is rarer in this class of tools than it should be.

Rate Folder Password Protector

  • Windows 7
  • Windows 8
  • Windows 10
  • Windows 11
Author: SoftOrbits (English)
4.5
Avg. rating: 4.5 from 837 votes
Good
 Download for Free

Risk-free download

progressive-webapps/apis/offline-first Created with Sketch.
100% offline
Your files never leave your PC
Safe & secure download
Directly from the official website
No sign-up required
No account or email to get started
Trusted since 2006
Desktop software for Windows