An archive is a great way to save disk space and also better organize your files. But, some files require additional protection... Therefore, many users are interested in how to put a password on the archive. If you are also interested in this question, then you have come to the right place. In this article, you will learn how to put a password on an archive using such popular archivers as WinRAR and 7zip.

How to set a password for an archive using the WinRAR archiver

To begin with, it should be noted that you can put a password on the archive only at the moment of creating the archive itself. If you already have an archive to which you want to put a password, then you will have to.

And so, in order to put the password on the archive, click right click for the files you want to add to the password protected archive. After that, in the menu that opens, select the item "".

After you have selected the "Add to archive" menu item, a window will appear in front of you. Here you can configure all the parameters that are relevant to the created archive.

In order to access the archive we are creating, you need to go to the "Additional" tab and click on the "Set password" button.

After that, a small window for entering a password will appear in front of you. To avoid an error, the password must be entered twice, in the upper and lower fields.

If you do not want to enter the password twice, then you can check the box next to the item "Display password when entering". In this case, the lower field for entering the password will disappear, and the password itself will be displayed normally, and not in the form of dots as before.

Separately, it is necessary to talk about the function "Encrypt file names". This function hides your file names. If you do not enable this feature, then your archive can be opened and view the file names. In this case, in order to open the files themselves or completely unzip the archive, you will need to enter a password. If you enable encryption of names, then the archive will be completely protected with a password. In this case, without entering a password, you will not even be able to look at the file names. After entering the password and enabling (or not enabling) the encryption function, close the small window with the password by clicking on the "Ok" button.

After that, the creation of the archive will begin with the password you supplied. The time it takes to create an archive depends on the performance of your computer and the size of the files being backed up. After the end of the archiving, the created archive will appear in the same folder as your source files.

How to put a password on an archive using the 7zip archiver

Another very popular archiver is the 7zip archiver. Unlike WinRAR, this archiver is completely free. In order to put a password on the archive using 7zip, you need to right-click on the files and select the menu item "7zip - Add to archive".

After that, a window with archiving settings will open in front of you. In 7zip, the interface is much simpler and clearer. There are no tabs here, and all functions are housed in one window. In order to put a password on the archive, you need to enter the password in two fields, which are located under the "Encryption" inscription.

After we have entered the desired password, you can change other archiving parameters. If everything suits you, then click on the "Ok" button.

After clicking on the "Ok" button, the process of archiving your files will begin. As with WinRAR, this process can take a while, depending on the amount of data and the performance of your computer.

There are many cases when the user has an urgent need to protect his personal information from third parties. Of course, one of better ways ensuring the protection of your files is to write them to an external medium and then lock it in a safe deposit box of a Swiss bank.

But, unfortunately, not everyone has such an opportunity and it is not always convenient and expedient. Therefore, other options should be taken into account, for example, protection of personal archives. complex password... Below, step by step and with illustrations, all the necessary steps are described, how to put a password on the WinRar archive.

Preparatory activities

Before proceeding directly to the instructions on how to set a password, the user will first need to complete the following three preliminary steps:

• Firstly, if the WinRar application is not yet available on the PC, then you need to install it from the official resource. Users have the opportunity to immediately purchase it for personal use by paying a small amount, or they can use a demo modification of the utility (this version is valid for more than one month, so the computer owner has ample time to solve his primary tasks).

Installation of the downloaded distribution kit will not cause any difficulties even for beginners, since a special installer will guide you through all the stages of the program installation step by step. The user is only required to agree to the terms or adjust some settings.

• Secondly, it is recommended to come up with a complex access code in advance, which will be set to protect the archive data. Practice shows that this seemingly simple stage often takes a significant amount of time, because it is desirable that the password be at least eight characters long and contain various categories of symbols, letters and numbers.
• Thirdly, write down your own code on paper, since even the worst and shabby notebook is always better than the best human memory.

This small final stage of the preparatory measures cannot be neglected, otherwise it is highly likely that if you lose your password, you will also lose important information stored in the archive along with it.

To crack an archive password-protected with a trusted code, you need a special software(it should be noted that it is paid), and also very powerful Hardware computer. And even if all these conditions are met, the "hacker" will need to spend a considerable amount of time searching through all possible options.

Instructions

To set a password for the winrar archive, you need to perform the following sequential steps:

Note: in earlier versions of the application, this button is located in the "Additional" tab.

Open the Advanced Archive Password Recovery password-protected archive:

1. You can open a password-protected archive by brute-force passwords, unless of course you remember the password. Depending on the power of your computer and the set password (password complexity), it will take time to complete the selection. If the key is light, for example, consists of three characters, then you can open it in 5 minutes, if the password exceeds 6-8 characters, then you can sort it out even day 4. But at the end you will still be successful and you will open the archive. Personally, I tried 2 times and they all justified the brute-force password cracking.

How to brute force a password?

2. There are many programs on the Internet for brute-force password, there are paid ones and without paid ones, they are limited in brute force in the number of characters in the password. Let's say they won't go through more than 4 characters, paid ones work without restrictions, attaching some more useful functions... I tried to brute-force a forgotten password of 12 characters for 4 days, my computer did not turn off. But this does not matter, since the computer is powerful, I could perform other operations I needed. I work with the Advanced Archive Password Recovery program which can be downloaded from the official Elcomsoft website and many others useful programs to guess passwords. Honestly, I performed two brute-force attacks on it, and they all ended in luck.

Advanced Archive Password Recovery Review:

3. Let's see how to work with Advanced Archive Password Recovery. After installing the program, the installation is no different from other program settings. After starting, you will see a window in which there are many settings, but do not be alarmed, I will tell you how to set up the work of brute force for the password to the archive:
4. In the picture above, I marked with numbers what settings will be needed to brute force the password. 1.) By clicking on the button, you will be prompted to select the archive you want to open. 2.) The line in which the path to the archive is entered, you can either enter it yourself or select the archive as in the number 1. 3.) What method to search for a password (find out) if you want to brute force that is much more efficient then put brute-force. 4.) Two tabs on which the settings will be made, now we are on one of them. 5.) What characters or numbers may be present in the archive, you can select everything, the search time depends on it. 6.) With what letters or symbols to start searching, you can leave it as it is if you have no idea what the password may contain. Next, go to the second tab under the number 4 labeled Length:
5. On the Length tab, under the number 2, select the smallest value that can be the password characters and the largest number of characters in the password. Click under the number 2 Start, thereby starting the process of guessing the password for the archive.

Download the programs mentioned in the article:

ARCHPR from the official website.

ARCHPR from Yandex disk.

6. Forgotten password from the RAR archive, the Accent RAR Password Recovery program will help you open.

   How to quickly open the password from the rar archive that you forgot:

   1. Archive password can be opened different ways, let's say brute-force passwords are when each digit and letter is substituted in different combinations. In this article, we will decrypt using the resources of your video card, yes, yes, you heard right, it can also perform abacus and do calculations. To do this, we need a program, you can download it from the official website, there are many more programs for opening office documents. But how beautifully it was not written, you still have to wait even if you yourself have a super powerful computer.

   How to use the program?

   2. To use it as easy as shelling pears, everyone knows everything in the regular order, clicked and follow the instructions of the installer wizard, where to which disk and all that. After the first launch, you have a few days to use not activated version but do not rejoice even though you will be given a few days to use it will be cut. That is, it can only remember passwords that are from 3 numbers and you need from 12, well, everything in that spirit is called trial version... But the program is worth it to buy at least in a pair with someone on the floor!

   So how to use it?

   3. After installation, the program must be run like the others and in the first window you will be prompted to select the file that we will decrypt.
   4. Under the number 1, by clicking on the button, you will be prompted to select a password-protected archive. I had only one archive for the experiment and I did not know the password from it. I could have made the archive myself and password protected it, but I didn’t make the test really fair.
   5. After a little analysis, the program will show that your archive is password protected and the following decryption form will be applied to it:
   6. After clicking on the button further at the end of the window, in the next window you will be offered some options on how to decrypt the password using brute force, using brute force in your dictionary, brute force mask, leave the brute force method as it is, this is like 3x. But it is created by default and if you click on the button at the very bottom, then it is this method that will find out your password.
   7. We have shown how to decrypt and other settings, and now the program will start decrypting. At the very bottom, you will be shown the approximate time to completion and the speed of the scan by brute force or another method of your choice. It only remains to wait:

   View settings and other functions of the program:

   8. If you look at the program settings, you will see that the program does not take the resources of the processor itself, as in other programs, namely the resources of the video card. This can be seen in the picture below:
   9. Next, you can select your dictionary through which the password selection will pass.
   10. Unfortunately, not everything is decided by the program, and a great responsibility falls on your computer, how powerful it is. To be more precise, how powerful a video card is in your pc. To get passwords in a matter of seconds, you need to do as in the video below:

Putting a password on a folder using the WinRAR archiver program is one of the most simple ways hide confidential information... Each of us has some information that is not intended to be known to others. It can be a folder, a file, a document, a photograph, or something similar.

When such an object is placed on a computer, it can become known to other people who do not need to know about it. Especially if several people use the computer.

This situation can be at home and at work. Therefore, you need to protect your data from prying attention.

The Windows operating system does not have a built-in password protection feature for a folder or file. The Windows operating system denies access to the object only certain users computer. This does not always help, because completely different people can log into the system under the name of this user.

You must put a password on a folder or file so that no one but you can open it. One of the ways is to put a password on a folder or file using an archiver. For this I will use the WinRAR archiver. This is one of the easiest and easiest ways.

But first, let's look at the easiest way: just hide the folder using the operating Windows systems.

How to hide a folder in Windows

The easiest way to hide a folder or file in Windows is by using an operating system tool. To do this, right-click on a folder or file. In the "Properties" window that appears, in the "General" tab, in the "Attributes" item, check the checkbox opposite the "Hidden" item, and then click on the "OK" button. After that, the folder will disappear from view.

This method is suitable when you need to quickly hide something, and there is no time to move the file somewhere else. But this is certainly not the most reliable way because it is easy to make this folder or file visible.

How to open a folder in Windows

In order to make a hidden folder or file visible again, in Windows 7 you need to go to the "Start" menu => "Control Panel" => "Appearance and Personalization" => "Folder Options" => "Show hidden files and folders" ...

In the "Folder Options" window, in the "View" tab, uncheck the box next to the "Show hidden files, folders and drives" item, and then click on the "OK" button.

Now, in the place where the hidden folder used to be, you will see it again. This folder will have a translucent look.

In order to make the folder open again, right-click on the folder, and in context menu select "Properties".

In the "Properties" window, in the "General" tab, in the "Attributes" item, uncheck the checkbox opposite the "Hidden" item. The folder is shared again.

After all these actions, go to the "Start" menu => "Control Panel" => "Appearance and Personalization" => "Folder Options" => "Show Hidden Files and Folders" => "Folder Options" => "View".

Here, check the box next to the item "Do not show hidden files, folders and drives", and then click on the "OK" button.

There is another way to hide a folder, but it is more difficult to use, so I will not cover it in this article.

How to put a password on a folder in WinRAR

When using the archiver, a folder or file will turn into an archive and it will not be possible to open it without knowing the password. In this example, I am using the WinRAR archiver.

There is a folder on the Desktop where you need to put a password. I named this folder "The Secret Folder". Right click on the folder.

In the context menu, select the "Add to archive ..." item.

In this window, click on the "Set password ..." button.

The "Enter password" window opens.

Enter your password in the appropriate field, and then confirm the password for verification. In this example, I have used a simple password. If you have very important information, then the password should be complex.

There are special programs for guessing and decrypting passwords. To a simple password, it will be easy for such a program to guess the password. To create a strong password, it is best to use special program- password manager. With such a program, you can create strong password, the program will remember it, and when needed, you can use it to enter your password again.

If you come up with a password yourself, then use a password that you will not forget (Russian words can be entered in the English keyboard layout). Remember the password, because if you forget it, you will not be able to unpack the archive and open the file.

After that, check the box next to the "Encrypt file names" item, and then click on the "OK" button.

Archiving starts, and after it completes, an encrypted archive will be created. The archive has the same name as the original folder. After that you can delete or move the original folder somewhere.

To open the created encrypted archive, right-click on the archive, and in the context menu, click on the "Open" item.

Enter the password in the appropriate field, and then click on the "OK" button.

The WinRAR archiver window appears, in this window, click on the "Extract ..." button.

In the "Extraction path and parameters" window, click the "OK" button.

After that, the encrypted archive will be unpacked to the Desktop, and the folder on which the password was previously set will again appear on it.

Conclusion

Using the WinRAR archiver, you can easily put a password on a folder or file. You can quickly close access to a file or folder by archiving the file or folder in WinRAR and then setting a password for the created archive.

How to put a password on a folder using WinRAR

The Advanced Archive Password Recovery utility is designed to recover passwords for ZIP archives and RAR, created using almost any archiving program, as well as self-extracting exe format archives.

You can download a free trial version (8 MB) and get acquainted with the program within 30 days on our website.

System requirements for the ARCHPR program:

Supported OS: Windows XP, Windows Vista(32/64 bit), Windows 7 (32/64 bit), Windows Server 2003/2008
- About 6MB of free hard disk space

In the tab Options you can ask General settings programs:

1. Interface language(Fig. 1) Russian, English, German;

Fig. 1 Main window of Advanced Archive Password Recovery

2. A priority(background priority of work or high);

3. Minimize to tray(if this option is enabled, when minimizing the program window, the icon will be located in the system tray; to expand the program, just click on it);

4. Event log archpr4.log(if this option is enabled, all information displayed in the status window is written to the archpr4.log log file. This file can be found at the following path C: \ Users \ ......... \ AppData \ Local \ VirtualStore \ Program Files (x86) \ Elcomsoft Password Recovery \ Advanced Archive Password Recovery);

5. Start attack on file select(if this option is enabled, the program analyzes the file immediately upon opening it).

Create a password archive

To test the operation of the program, were encrypted by means of WinRAR several archives with different passwords for using different types of attacks.

To create a password for an archive, in the main menu of the WinRAR program (another archiver can be used), right-click the folder or file that needs to be archived and select Add files to archive in the context menu (Fig. 2)

Rice. 2 Adding a file to the archive in WinRAR

In the tab Additionally select Set password

Fig. 3 Setting a password for an archive in WinRAR

In the opened dialog box Password input enter the password and check the checkbox Encrypt filenames

Fig. 4 Dialog box Enter password for WinRAR program

In the example, the folder “ archive # 1»With password 1234 .

Archive password recovery

Now let's start recovering the password for archive # 1.

Let's open the program Elcomsoft Advanced Archive Password Recovery.

Dropdown Attack type select Brute force... When this type of attack is selected, all possible combinations of symbols allowed by the user on the tab will be searched. Kit fields Character set(Fig. 5). This type of attack is the slowest, but is often most successful on short and simple passwords.

If you know what characters the password consists of, you must in the field Character set check or uncheck the necessary boxes to reduce the time for password recovery.

Fig. 5 Configuring Advanced Archive Password Recovery parameters using a brute-force attack

When all the settings for the password recovery program are done, you must click on the toolbar button Open and specify the path to the encrypted archive. Upon completion of decryption, a window with the recovered password will open (Fig. 6)

Fig. 6 Result window displaying the password of the Advanced Archive Password Recovery program

As we can see in Fig. 6, the password was recovered in 9 seconds. This time can be reduced if information is known not only about the symbols used, but also about the length of the password. This setting can be done on the tab Length(Fig. 7).

Rice. 7 Setting the password length in Advanced Archive Password Recovery

Fig. 8 Result window showing the password of the Advanced Archive Password Recovery program

When specifying additional information about the password (password length), the recovery time was 5 seconds (Fig. 8).

If some part of the password is known, the program provides the ability to use Mask attack... A mask attack is a modified brute-force attack and is used when certain information is available about the password, namely, if some characters in the password are known. You can specify a specific character / characters that is used in the password at a specific position.

In order to use given type attacks needed in the dropdown Attack type select By mask and indicate on the tab Kit known password characters in the Mask field (Fig. 9). For example, a password is 4 characters long, starts with “a” and ends with “f”. In this case, you can specify the mask "a ?? f", in which the characters question mark replace the desired ones. With this setting, guessing unknown password characters will take the same amount of time as it would take to find a two-character password.

Fig. 9 Configuring Advanced Archive Password Recovery parameters using a mask attack

If the password contains the “ ? ”, Then on the tab Advancedness you can change the character that will be used when specifying the mask, as an unknown character.

Users often use whole words as passwords to make them easier to remember, rather than an arbitrary set of characters. To recover such a password, an attack type is suitable. By dictionary... This method allows you to brute force passwords included in dictionaries. Compared to enumerating all possible combinations of characters, enumerating dictionary words takes much less time, but there is a high probability that the password will not be in the dictionary.

When configuring this attack (Fig. 10) on the tab Dictionary you can specify the path to the dictionary that will be used for password recovery.

Rice. 10 Configuring Advanced Archive Password Recovery Options Using Dictionary Attack

Unfortunately, you can only use one dictionary at a time. Elcomsoft program Advanced Archive Password Recovery already has three built-in dictionaries (Fig. 11): English (242965 words), German (80472 words) and Russian (75459 words). Additional dictionaries can be used.

Fig. 11 Selecting a dictionary for password recovery

Attack method Plaintext is used if an archive consisting of several files contains at least one decrypted file. In this case this method attack allows you to decrypt all other archive files, regardless of the complexity of the password.

You can know in advance how long it will take to recover your password. To do this, select the desired type of attack (speed test is possible only for brute-force attacks or mask attacks), specify the path to the archive and click on the toolbar button Test... At the end of the test in the window Result you will be able to see the total number of possible passwords, the speed of searching for options, as well as the approximate time to search for a password (Fig. 12).

Rice. 12 Result window of the test mode of the Advanced Archive Password Recovery program

In conclusion, I would like to say that forgetting the password to the archive, you should not panic. Password recovery is not an easy task, but it is quite doable.