Is there a "File Vault" type app?

Hide Folders is a free program you could use, available here:

http://www.altomac.com/hide_folders/

There a few others available too if you look around.

 

Another good solution is to use Disk Utility to create an encrypted disk image in which you store your files. The disk image will be visible to everyone, but only people with the password can get to the files inside.

 

how? i was actually really curious about this as well.

 

Launch Disk Utility
Select File -> New -> Blank Disk Image

Save As: MyPrivateFiles (probably should choose a sneakier name)
Where: Documents (or wherever you'd like to stash it)
Volume name: My Private Files (or whatever you'd like to call it)
Volume Size: 100 MB (make it big enough to hold all the files you want to hide)
Volume Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled) -- stick with the default
Encryption: choose something other than None
Partitions: Single partition - Apple Partition Map -- stick with the default
Image format: sparse disk image -- this will minimize disk space required for your hidden image file
Create

I think it mounts it automatically for you. It's treated like an external drive, shows up on your desktop, needs to be ejected when you're finished, etc.
Double click the image file to remount it. Make sure NOT to save the password in your keychain or you've just defeated the purpose of the file. ;-)

PS, keep in mind that unless you exclude this file from time machine, every time you make even the smallest change of a file inside the encrypted disk image, the entire image file will be backed up by Time Machine.

 

thanks, i just selected 2.6 gig, and it treats it like a dvd or whatever, but it is working flawlessly. who needs another program when this can do it perfectly fine. thanks again.

 

sparse

related to the disk image is the sparse disk image. The difference is on a sparse image, the user can choose the maximum size (say 2 GB), however the actual sparse image will only be the size of the files in it.

You can set a 2 GB max, yet the actual file could be 75 MB. this is good for people who want to conserve hard drive space and not be truly defined or limited by a disk image size. Encryption is still available and sparse images mount the same.

making is the same process too, except choose sparse image instead of "read and write"

this is how I back up my entire system, and I must say I'm a fan of the sparseimage