5 Ways to Password Protect a USB Drive in Windows

By Justin SabrinaUpdated on March 16, 2023

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Q: How Can I Password-Protected USB Flash Drive in Windows 10?
“There are lots of important and sensitive data in my USB flash drive, including photos, videos and word document. I want to keep them safe in USB drive, BitLocker is difficult to used. Can I encrypt a USB drive on Windows 10 without BitLocker? How to put password on USB flash drive Windows 10? Thanks to help!”

USB drives now is one of our very common use in our daily life, we use it to storage important work files and privacy files which are pictures, videos and documents etc. Beside backing up our documents, we also share our files to others with USB flash drive. So there must be file-hacked risk during the process. At this point, it is very necessary to get your privacy data password protected while sharing the files via your USB drive to ensure that your important files are secured and kept safe from the wrong hands.

5 Methods to Password Protect USB Flash Drive

We often use USB drive to store, transfer and even back up files, there are many free USB drive encryption and paid data encryption for USB flash drive, today we share four free and paid USB drive encryption tool to password protect data in any USB flash drive or USB stick, such as Samsung USB drive, SanDisk USB flash drive, Kingston, PNY Turbo, Corsair Flash Survivor Stealth, Lexar JumpDrive, Corsair Flash Voyager.

CONTENTS

Method 1: Password Protect Files on USB Drive via UkeySoft USB Encryption ?

To password protect a USB flash drive, the best and easiest way is to use a third-party USB drive protection software. Here we highly recommend UkeySoft USB Encryption.

UkeySoft USB Encryption is a safe and reliable software encryption. With an advanced encryption technology (256-bit keys), it can password protect all kinds of data on USB drive, or lock specific files and folders based on your needs. Compared to other brands, this smart tool allows to divide USB Drive into 2 areas: secure area and public area. You can add any data or folder you want to lock in the secure area and set your password. No one can modify, delete, or rename it without the correct password or correct encryption key.

Core Features:

• Easy-to-use, safe and effective USB protection tool.
• Encrypt program files and folders on the USB drive.
• Password protect any type files/folders on USB drive.
• Divides USB drive into secure area and public area.
• Encrypt all data on USB drive, like image, documents, audio, etc.
• Password protect USB drives and encrypt external devices.

How to Password Protect a USB Drive in Windows?

Note: To avoid data loss, please backup and save your USB data in advance.

Step 1. Download and Run UkeySoft USB Encryption
Download UkeySoft USB Encryption on Windows computer, install and open it.

Step 2. Insert a USB drive to Windows PC
Next, insert your USB disk into the USB port of Windows, UkeySoft will detect your USB disk automatically, select your USB drive from the path.

Step 3. Set Secure Area on the USB Disk
Under "Create a secure area on the disk:" section, you can move the arrow to set the size of secure area as you like.

Step 4. Install and Create Secure Area
If ready, click on "Install" button to start creating secure area of USB disk.

Step 5. Set a Password for USB Disk
In the pop-up window, you need to set a password for the secure area and confirm it. Then tap "OK" to continue.

Afterward, you will see a successful message, click "OK".

Step 6. Add Files or Folders to the Secure Area
Now your USB drive has been divided into 2 area: secure area and public area. Open your USB disk, and you can see an "agent.exe" application (secure area). Double click it and enter the password you set in Step 5. Then you may add some specific files or folders to it.

Great! Nobody can open or access your secure area without the password. Even if you lose your USB flash drive accidentally, you don't have to worry about data loss!

Method 2: Password Protect USB Drive with UkeySoft File Lock

Ukeysoft File Lock is another recommended data encryption for USB flash drive, it uses military-grade 256-bit AES encryption technology for encrypting files, folders and external device that has a strong prevention for people to access files, folders and drives without any passcode. It’s perfectly safe for protection so that you do not have to worry about the confidentiality of your data or files that would be leaking. Ukeysoft File Lock not only can help you hide and lock files, folders on Windows and Mac, but also allows you password protect files in USB drives easily.

Ukeysoft File Lock is available compatible with Windows and Mac OS: Windows 11, Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Enterprise, Windows 8.1 Pro, Windows 8.1 Enterprise, Windows Vista, or 7 Ultimate, and Windows Vista or 7 Enterprise; and macOS 10.10 - macOS 12.

Key Features:

• Password protect your privacy and important data from theft, loss or leaks.
• Hide Files, Folders and Drives in Windows 11/10/8.1/7/XP.
• Monitor your folder from being changed and viewed.
• Hide or lock files/folder on USB flash drive, or external hard drive.
• Make your folders completely invisible and unsearchable.
• Read-only：Protect your files and folders from being edited or deleted.
• Easily to restore your password through the pre-defined email when forget your password.

How to Password Protect Files and Folders on USB drive

Step 1.Launch UkeySoft File Lock
Firstly, download and install the program before you start. If this is the first time you have run this trial, you will need to type the initial password "123456" in the program to enable the program.

Step 2. Select External Disk
Once you get in the program, all supported feature are listed on the left. If you want to protect data in USB flash drive, please go to the “External Disk” on the left, and you can easily to hid and lock files, folders on USB drive. If you want to hide encrypt your data on a local drive, select “ Local Disk” and then choose the content that you want to hide or lock.

Step 3.Password Protect Files and Folders in USB Drive
After choosing USB encryption mode, then click “Locking File” feature. There are two ways to add files and folder into the program.

1) Drag & drop: Directly drag files or folder to the software interface.
2) Adding Button: You can also add files by click “Lock File” button, or add folder by click “Lock Folder” button, then set a password to protect them.

After adding folder and files to the list, just enter the same password twice and click "Lock" button to password protect the added files and folders in USB drive.

Now it’s done the whole locking file process and no one can access those protected files without passcode, how easy is that!

Step 4.Unlock Files/Folders/Drives
At last, also if we need to decrypt any protected files, folders or drive, just select the contents that you have previously locked before, and click “Unlock” button on the right to simply unlock the encrypted data.

Download UkeySoft File Lock for Windows to password protect data on your USB flash drive.

Method 3: Encrypt USB Drive by WINRAR

Winrar is a software that is very widely used and allows you to copress files and encrypt them also. As for USB drive, you can compile the contets of it and encrypt flash drive in a password-protected folder. The following step shows how to encrypt USB drive by WINRAR.

Step 1. Download WINRAR
Firstly, we can download the software from the ofoficial website. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux OS. Install it once it has done the downloading.

Step 2. Prepare the files to encrypt
Plug your USB flash drive to your computer and choose the files or folders that you want to password protected. Or if you want password protect all the files in your USB drive, it’s better to put them all into one folder, it’s encrypt the whole folder.

Step 3. Encrypt the prepared folder
Once all your files are in one folder, right-click the folder and select ‘Add to archive’.

A pop-up window will be displayed. In the ‘General’ tab, you can set a new name for the encrypted folder from the ‘Archive name’ textbox.

Select 'RAR' as the archive format and click 'Set password'. A pop-up window will be displayed. Enter your desired password in the textbox and reenter it in the verification box. Click on the checkbox that says 'Encrypt file names', then click 'OK'. An archive file with the '.rar' the file extension will be created. This is your encrypted data. You will be required to enter a password whenever you want to access the contents of the archive file.

Method 4: Password Protect Microsoft Documents in USB Drive

If it is a word document or any other Microsoft Office file, and it’s only individual files on your USB drive but not an entire folder, you can set up the password protection for the file just right inside Microsoft Word or the other Microsoft application.

To password secure a Word document

Step 1. Open the file in Microsoft Word and click 'File'.
Step 2. On the 'Info' tab, you'll see the option to 'Protect Document'.
Step 3. Click the option and select 'Encrypt with Password'.

Tips: You can follow this procedure for other Microsoft office files, such as PDF, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Method 4: Use BitLocker to Encrypt the Whole USD Flash Drive

BitLocker is the the built-in encryption tool that most of the Windows users would use, it’s very straightforward, and it’s perfectly adequate. It works on all types fo drives beside USB drives, it’s free and easy to use. It only takes a few seconds with BitLocker to protect your drive. Here shows the steps.

Step 1. Insert the USB drive into your computer.

Step 2. Navigate to This PC in Windows Explorer and right-click the USB drive.

Step 3. Select Turn on Bitlocker

Step 4. Select ‘Use a password to unlock the drive’ and enter a password twice.

Step 5. Select Next

Step 6. Select where or how you want to receive your recovery key in the next window and select Next

Step 7. Select ‘Encrypt entire drive’ and the Next

Step 8. Select ‘Compatible mode’ in the choose which encryption mode screen and then Next

Step 9. Select Start encrypting

The Explorer icon for the USB drive will now change to include a padlock. When you want to access the drive, double-click it and you will be prompted for a password.

In Conclusion

The portable USB drive is the device that is very convenient for us to backup, store and share our data. However, it has a risk of losing data by getting erased or corrupted mistakenly or leaking to the wrong hands. Here four USB encryption solutions in this article that could handle the concerns of USB security. To create password protected USB drives, you can utilize WINRAR, Windows password protect, BitLocker or file lock software. With UkeySoft File Lock, you can easily encrypt and password protect files/folders on a local disk, USB flash drive, or external hard drive; with UkeySoft USB Encryption, you can create a secure area on USB drive, and password protect any USB drives, lock and encrypt USB flash drive, Pen drive, Memory Stick, SD Card, Thumb Drive, Jump Drive, External Drive and all other portable devices.