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Alag28

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 23, 2006
388
18
i need to safeguard some pictures that are personal to me. i would like to know the best way to store them like create a folder and put a password on it to open the folder. but obv i dont see anything like that so thats why im here.

so...how do i do it?
 
You can't really 'password protect' them, but you can change them into a different kind of file type, which should confuse any prying eyes. Right click on them, go Get Info and change the 'extension' to something like TXT. The computer will think it's a text file. Just change the extension back when you want to look at the images.
that should keep your porn safe
 
The usual way to protect files in OS X is to create an encrypted DMG with Disk Utility and store the files in it. You will be required to enter a password of your choosing every time you mount the disk image to open the files.
 
The usual way to protect files in OS X is to create an encrypted DMG with Disk Utility and store the files in it. You will be required to enter a password of your choosing every time you mount the disk image to open the files.

As long as you remember not to store the password in Keychain
 
disk utility create new disk image volume size make it huge....I'm pretty sure sparse is dynamic :confused: .....anyway choose an encryption then image format sparse image youl be prompted for a pass put one in and uncheck remember password....then put ur pics in and just remember unmount it when your done
 
Good post. There really should be a better way to do this, this is a pretty common requirement out there. Are there no "image wallet" type applications out there?
 
How about if you compress it? Can you password protect a zipped (or another compression type) file?
 
You can't really 'password protect' them, but you can change them into a different kind of file type, which should confuse any prying eyes. Right click on them, go Get Info and change the 'extension' to something like TXT. The computer will think it's a text file. Just change the extension back when you want to look at the images.
that should keep your porn safe

i liked your idea so i decided to try it......photoshop and preview went right ahead and opened my re-extensioned .txt files......so just a tip, your "stuff" may not be as safe as you think!!!!
 
You can always create another user account just for the people that use your computer. When you choose "Get Info" on the pics you want to safeguard just click the locked button. When in the second user account one one will be able to open the locked pics without a password.
 
Actually you can sorta protect it.

IF you choose the folder and "get info" on it you can go down to the permissions section and for whatever user (admin or the user that is typically on the computer) you wish, change it to "write only" it will ask you for your (admin) password to unlock (the little lock on the right of the window has to be clicked before you can change these permissions).

That way a user can add a file to the folder... like a drop box, but not open it or get contents from it. That should protect it. Whenever you want to open the folder, just "get info" again and unlock the lock by typing your password and then change the permissions to read/write or read... and then just change it back when you are done.

It's a bit rudimentary but it will get the job done.
 
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