{"id":1576,"date":"2012-11-20T08:27:58","date_gmt":"2012-11-20T08:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/?p=1576"},"modified":"2017-10-17T03:36:33","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T03:36:33","slug":"how-to-encrypt-your-files-with-efs-in-windows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/how-to-encrypt-your-files-with-efs-in-windows\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Encrypt Your Files with EFS in Windows"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>EFS (Encrypting File System) is a built-in component of the NTFS file system, which comes with all professional versions of Windows since Windows 2000. Using EFS, you can encrypt files and folders so that only authorized logged-on users can view the data. If someone else logs in with unauthorized users, or boots from a Windows PE or Linux CD, or removes the hard drive, the files remain encrypted and they are inaccessible.<\/p>\n<p>To use EFS, you simply change the property of a folder and enable encryption. Once a folder is encrypted with EFS, all the files you create within that folder or move into that folder are automatically encrypted.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How to Encrypt Your Files with EFS in Windows?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Select one or multiple files and folders in Windows Explorer, right-click the selection afterwards and select <strong>Properties<\/strong> from the context menu.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/folder-properties.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"557\" height=\"524\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10233\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Click on <strong>Advanced<\/strong> button from the Properties window.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/advanced-folder-properties.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"364\" height=\"463\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10235\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Tick the <strong>Encrypt contents to secure data<\/strong> checkbox on the new window, and click <strong>OK<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/encrypt-data-with-efs.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"381\" height=\"328\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10236\" \/><\/p>\n<p>If you have selected at least one folder, you will be asked if you only want to encrypt the root files of that folder, or files in sub-folders as well.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/apply-changes-to-subfolders.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"390\" height=\"248\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10237\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The files and folder in question are then displayed in green in Windows Explorer. Congratulations, you have just encrypted your first files or folders with EFS.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Note:<\/strong> If the original EFS certificate is lost or corrupted in your system, you&#8217;ll lose access to your EFS encrypted files. It is important to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/backup-or-export-efs-certificate-in-windows\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">backup your EFS certificate<\/a> in a safe location.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Because it is already included in a typical Windows installation, EFS is the quickest way to encrypt your files if you\u2019re already using Windows. There\u2019s nothing to download or install and encrypting a folder can be done with just a few clicks. Unless you really have very sensitive information that requires a very strong encryption solution, EFS should suffice.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EFS (Encrypting File System) is a built-in component of the NTFS file system, which comes with all professional versions of Windows since Windows 2000. Using EFS, you can encrypt files and folders so that only authorized logged-on users can view the data. If someone else logs in with unauthorized users, or boots from a Windows [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10,3,39,5,4],"tags":[691,690],"class_list":["post-1576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-others","category-tips-tricks","category-windows-7","category-windows-8","category-windows-vista","category-windows-xp","tag-efs","tag-encrypt-files-with-efs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1576"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10280,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576\/revisions\/10280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.top-password.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}