Disclaimer: I do not suggest or condone using the following tips in an illegal manner. If you do chose to do something with the information that follows, I take no responsibility for the consequences.
The vast majority of us have files on our computers that we would not like anyone to see. Whether it's a Word document containing all your account passwords, plans and drawings for an invention, or those personal pictures that you took last summer for your spouse, aside from the rare gem that only uses their computer for Facebook games, we all have files we would like to keep private. There are many ways to protect these files, but today I'm going to discuss one of the simpler methods that requires no special software or monetary investment, all it will cost you is your time. Now, for anybody that has been around Windows for some time, it is no surprise or secret that you can hide files and folders. For those of you that did not know this, here is how you do it:
Right-click on any file or folder that you want to hide and click Properties. In the Properties window under the General tab, put a check mark in the box that says Hidden, then click Okay. If it is a file the icon will disappear. If it is a folder you will first be asked if you want all the files and folders within that folder to be hidden or just the folder. Usually you will want to click All Files and Folders, that way all of the pictures or what ever you are hiding are hidden too.
Now, there are several ways to access files you have hidden this way. One way is to enter the file's path in the address bar. For example, let's say you hid a picture in the My Documents folder called "lucky.jpg". From any open folder window you could enter:
C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\luck.jpg
and the picture would open. Note: as long as you know what folder the file is hidden in, you don't have to manually enter the whole path. Just navigate to the folder (in this case My Documents) put the cursor at the end of the address that is in the address bar and add "\filename.extention" without the quotes (in this case \lucky.jpg).
There are several other ways to access hidden files as long as you know where they are. This method of hiding files is effective for keeping files out of sight, but they are quite easy to find for anyone with even a small working knowledge of Windows. This is because Windows has a Show Hidden Files check box in Folder Options that makes all files that have been marked "hidden" visible (they will appear as semi-transparent icons). To get to Folder options just click on the Tools button in any open folder window, then select Folder Options (alternately you could enter "folder options" in the Start Menu search box then click enter). Click the View tab at the top and then scroll down until you see Hidden Files and Folders. Under that there will be two options Select the Show option and all the files that you have hidden will be visible.
Now what a lot of people don't know, even those who have been using Windows for a long time, is that there is a way to hide your files in such a way that even with the Show Hidden Files option selected, your files will still not be visible. This is a much more effective way of hiding those top secret files that are just for your eyes only. Here is how:
Let's say you want to hide a folder called "Inventions" on your C: drive containing invention idea documents. To make this folder completely invisible to others:
1) Press the Windows key+R (the windows key is the one with the Windows logo on it). This opens a Run Dialog
2) In the box in the Run Dialog type: cmd and then hit enter. This opens a Command Prompt.
3) Now in the Command Prompt type: attrib +s +h "C:\Inventions" (Don't leave out the quotes around your path)
4) Press enter and this file will be hidden even if the folder options are set to show hidden files.
To reverse this, in other words, make the folder visible again, just do exactly the same steps as above, only replace the + signs with - signs (attrib -s -h "C:\Inventions"). Excuse me for a second while I go into geek speak for a second to explain what is happening here. The letters "s" and "h" are file attributes. When you use the attrib command letters with a plus mean add that attribute to the file and letters with a minus in front mean remove that attribute from the file. The "h" obviously stands for hidden so +h means: give this file the hidden attribute or make this file hidden. The "s" stands for system or system file. Giving the file the system file attribute makes Windows treat it like an operating system essential file. This means that you cannot change it or its place on the disk by conventional means, which is why you have to change it back through the command line. If you were to open the properties of a folder hidden this way, you would find the hidden check box is grayed out.
Now the thing about this is that the files in the folder that you hid this way are still visible even though the folder isn't, so this is not very useful when implemented this way since someone could potentially run a file search for say *.doc and see all the .doc files on the computer including the ones in the hidden folder. To make this more useful do this: Before going through the above steps, hide the folder with the Properties menu as I explained earlier, but hit Apply instead of Okay. Then agree to hide all files and subfolders when prompted. Then in the same Properties box uncheck Hidden and this time click Okay. Now when it asks if you want to un-hide the files and subfolders select only the folder. This will give you and unhidden Inventions folder full of hidden files and folders. Now just hide the Inventions folder using the Command Prompt method. See this way, the Inventions folder will not be visible when Show Hidden is selected and even though all of it's contents will be semi-visible, you have to actually be in the Inventions folder to see them. Unless someone knows the Inventions folder is there AND knows it's path, they will never find your stuff. You on the other hand only have to navigate to the hidden Inventions folder and use the Show Hidden option to access all your stuff.
There is one caveat. If the person looking sets Folder Options to Show Hidden and then they do a search for *.doc, the .doc files in the hidden Inventions folder will show up in that search. So, if you really need a certain file hidden, hide it with the Command Prompt method to be safe. So if the entire contents of the folder must be hidden this way it becomes too time consuming unless you know how to write a batch file. Therefore, if you have a lot of files to hide, you would be better off using another method to secure them. But remember, simply setting all the files in the folder to hidden when prompted is in most cases to keep the average user from finding the files. Someone has to really be digging for dirt to even bother trying to find files hidden in this way.
Now the uses for this tip are numerous and can range from completely innocent (hiding your diary or journal files) to completely illegal (hiding bootlegged copies of movies), hence the legal disclaimer at the beginning of this post. However, a word of warning to those who might choose to use this tip to hide illegal files. The FBI forensics department are not your average user and neither is your average IT guy like me. They and we have tools and know ways to extract files from your hard drive no matter how well they are hidden, EVEN if you deleted them. So I advise you that this will not keep away prying eyes that know what they are doing.
If you are having trouble getting this or any other tip to work for you, just leave me a note in the comments section of the tip in question. I read all comments, so rest assured I will respond to your concern whether I can help you or not.
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