You have many freeware applications available all over the internet that you can choose from if you want to encrypt the contents in a ZIP File. And you can protect this ZIP File from safeguarding these contents. In this risewindows article, you will learn how to do that. You have to use free tools such as 7-Zip and WinRAR since Windows doesn’t come with a built-in feature to password protect the ZIP File. You will have to enter and verify the password whenever you want to open the file.
How to Password Protect a ZIP Archive using 7-Zip?
One of the applications that we are going to discuss here is 7-Zip. It is an open-source program that you can use to create and extract files from various archive formats, like ZIP. This tool can add your files or folders to a ZIP archive and set a password to keep the content safe.
Perform these steps to create a ZIP file and add a password to it using the 7-Zip application to:-
Step 1: As the first step, install the 7-Zip application on your Windows 11 or 10 system.
Step 2: Go to File Explorer and select the file(s) or folder(s) you want to create a ZIP archive. You can press
Step 3: Once you complete the above steps, a window will open saying “Add to Archive.” Find the “Enter Password” field in the “Encryption” section. It will ask to enter the password again in the “Re-enter Password” field.
Check the box that says
7-Zip will create your password-protected ZIP archive in the same folder that you’ve selected.
After it is complete, the file will require you to enter the password whenever you try to open it.
Entering the correct password, click the OK button to access the files within the Zip archive.
Download 7-Zip
You can visit the official website of 7-Zip and download it on your computer.
How to Encrypt a ZIP Archive through WinRAR?
You may want to take a note of this one. WinRAR is one of the popular applications that you can use to compress the file(s) and folder(s). It works with ZIP along with several other formats. You can also use it to secure your archives by setting up a password.
To make an archive and protect that using WinRAR, do the following steps:-
Step 1: First, download and install the free version of WinRAR on your Windows PC.
Step 2: Now, choose the file(s) or folder(s) that you want to password protect. Right-click on it and select the “Add to Archive” option.
Step 3: Once you complete the above steps, a window will open saying, “Archive name and parameters.” Select the ZIP option in the “Archive Format” section to make a
Step 4: Type and re-type your password in the respective fields.
Step 5: Click on
Step 6: Click on
WinRAR will create your password-protected ZIP archive in the same folder that you’ve selected. After it is complete, the file will require you to enter the password whenever you try to open it.
Entering the correct password, click the OK button to access the files within the Zip archive.
That is it.
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