First time locking a folder.

[fishingfromakay]

Hello all, I would like to lock a folder on my 2009 iMac, This would be the first time that I lock a folder. Before I lock it I was wondering if there is anything that I should know ? The folder holds pictures and documents. Thank you for any help/comment/suggestions.

 

[Gregg2]

Not something I've done, but there's lots of info about it, such as:

How to Lock Files and Folders in macOS

Want to lock a file on your Mac so you can't accidentally edit or delete it? Here's how to use Finder or Terminal to do so.

www.makeuseof.com

Maybe reading some stuff will make you think of specific questions they don't address, and someone here might be able to help.

 

[Boyd01]

What are you trying to accomplish? AFAIK, it is very simple. If you drag a file out of a locked folder, it will create a duplicate but leave the original in place. You can't add new files to a locked folder. If you try to delete a file from a locked folder, it will ask for your password. If you try to delete the locked folder, it will tell you it's locked and ask if you want to continue.

That's about all I can think of. Not sure if I have ever actually used this feature myself, I just did a few tests to discover these things and you could do the same. Make a temporary folder, add some files, lock it and play around yourself to see what happens.

 

[chown33]

I recommend making a new folder for testing, put a couple of files in it you don't care about, then lock it. That way you can see what happens when you try different things on the locked folder.

 

[fishingfromakay]

@Gregg2 thnx for the link I will take a look at it.
@Boyd01 I will be using the iMac for some work related work. I have some personal items on it and was thinking of locking it so that it can not be "Accidentally" opend. The iMac is at my house so I may be overthinking this but I would rather be safe. Thank you for responding.
@chown33 I like the idea of creating a Testing Folder. I will defiantly use that idea, thnx.

 

[Boyd01]

I have some personal items on it and was thinking of locking it so that it can not be "Accidentally" opend.

Locking a folder won't prevent you from opening it.

 

[NoBoMac]

Or you can just make a work account and do work stuff in it. Keeps everything separate.

 

[fishingfromakay]

@NoBoMac I think that is going to be the way I am going to go, thank you.

 

[solouki]

Hi fishingfromakay,

It really depends on what you are trying to protect, and from whom, and how serious you are about protecting your personal information.

Certainly, following NoBoMac's suggestion is a good one, but if you are logging into a work VPN then simply having a "work" account won't necessarily protect your "personal" account from the administrators at work.

A more secure method would be to run a Virtual Machine on your iMac for your work-related work, thereby limiting your work's access to the VM. But even this is not perfectly secure.

When I have a folder that I want to be truly secure, and portable, I make a compressed and encrypted tar of it and then split it into subfiles that can be more easily transmitted to another location. Personally, I wrote scripts that employ tar, bzip2, gpg2, shasum, split, cat, and diff to perform these tasks automatically, securely, and robustly, and then additional scripts that merge, decrypt, uncompress, and unpack the tar archive at the other end. As the encrypted, compressed, tar archive is encrypted using 4096 bit RSA secret keys, it is secure from prying eyes if that is what you are worried about. So, you make the encrypted archive, delete the original folder, and then use your iMac for work confident that no prying eyes will be able to recover your personal folder's material. When you are done with using your iMac for work, you can then decrypt and unpack the archive recovering your original personal folder.

...just other options...

Solouki

 

[Lee_Bo]

Just my $0.02, but keep work and personal separate. Don’t use a work account on your personal device and don’t use a personal account on a work device. I was in the corporate world long enough to know to keep them both separated.

 

[fishingfromakay]

@solouki Thank you for your suggestions, it looks very good and effective but I am going to have to learn a few things before I can do that.

@Lee_Bo Thank you, I do like the idea of a separate account and I believe that is the way that I will go.

 

[Lee_Bo]

@solouki Thank you for your suggestions, it looks very good and effective but I am going to have to learn a few things before I can do that.

@Lee_Bo Thank you, I do like the idea of a separate account and I believe that is the way that I will go.

And one more thing, only because of the company I used to work for, but enable 2FA on your work accounts. Really makes your employer mad if you leave.