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You can use BitLocker to protect your files and personal data on Windows 11. Unfortunately, you cannot use BitLocker to lock a single folder or file. It is supposed to protect your entire disk. People use third-party apps to protect a single folder or file, but what if I tell you that there is a way to lock folders on Windows 11 using BitLocker? First, you will need to create a virtual drive and then in this drive locate your important documents and images. The virtual drive works like an external drive to which you can attach an eject. You can easily use BitLocker to protect it as it is part of the virtual drive. If you get the idea, go ahead and start using BitLocker on a specific folder. However, if you don’t know, follow the step-by-step guide below to learn how to lock folders on Windows 11 easily.
How to lock folders on Windows 11 using BitLocker?
Step 1. Create virtual drive
- Right-click on the Start menu and choose Disk Management.
- Go to the action menu and choose to create a VHD
- click on browse and save it somewhere you can access it
- Then enter the amount of storage for the virtual drive and also configure the virtual drive size.
- Under virtual hard disk, disk format choose VHDX and click OK.
- Right-click on the disk and choose Initialize Disk.
- Then choose a partition style (GPT or MBR) and click OK.
- Right-click on Unallocated and choose New Simple Volume.
- Click Next > click next again.
- Assign a drive letter and click Next.
- Format the partition with default settings and click Next.
- Click Finish to create a new volume.
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Step 2. Enable BitLocker and protect your files
- Open Windows System > Settings and click on Storage.
- Click Advanced Storage Settings
- Click Disks and Volumes.
- Find the virtual drive and click Properties.
- Scroll to the end and choose Enable BitLocker.
- Expand Fixed data drives, find the virtual drive and choose Enable BitLocker.
- Choose to use a password to unlock the drive.
- Save the recovery file where you feel comfortable. For now, I’ll choose to save it to a file. Please do not lose this key as it is the only way to recover and set a new password.
- For the next step, click Encrypt used disk space only.
- Then you need to choose New Encryption Mode and click.
- Finally, choose to begin encryption.
Step 3. Access data from locked virtual drive
To view the locked virtual drive, double-click it to open it, enter your password and access all your confidential data.
Conclusion:
Here’s how you can lock folders on Windows 11 using BitLocker to protect your most private files. You can use third-party apps to lock your most important data, but I always recommend using the virtual drive to protect your files.