How to encrypt or password a 7-Zip compressed file or folder

7-Zip is one of the great WinRAR alternatives that stands out for being free and open source. Being even superior and more secure than the above mentioned app. Even so, it doesn't enjoy the same popularity and many people don't know how 7-Zip works.

The way it works is actually the same but improved and you can compress a file at most with 7zip in Windows. What can change the most is the interface of the app in question, the rest is all the same. However, 7-Zip has the great advantage of being free.




A little further down we will see a tutorial to learn how set a password for a file or a folder that you decide to compress using the program. You will appreciate that it is too easy to do and that it shouldn't take you long to learn.

How to encrypt or password a 7-Zip compressed file or folder

How to set the password with 7-Zip

The big advantage that 7-Zip has over WinRAR is that it is totally free among other things. This is why many people prefer the former over the latter although they can decompress a split rar file or in addition to that they can split or compress Winrar files into multiple parts. We will see step by step everything you need to know to set a password on a file or folder compressed with 7-Zip.

What you should keep in mind is that you can only add a password when creating a new compressed file. In case you want to add a password to an already compressed one. You have to proceed to unzip it and do it again.

  • What we need to do is open 7-Zip and select all the files we want to compress. Then we will click on "Add" top left.
  • The program offers us several compression programs which can be: ZIP, 7Z, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, WIN e XZ, then you can tweak the rest of the options as you see fit.
  • If you look at the box that appears at the bottom right it says "Encryption" here we have to add a password that we will have to write twice, it must be the same.
  • Once you have everything ready. The only thing left to do is press "OK" and it will start creating the compressed file. Which, depending on the weight of the files, could take more or less time.

How to encrypt or password a 7-Zip compressed file or folder




How to compress with password in 7-Zip

When the compression is complete, the fillet it will come compressed with 7-Zip and password. The names of the files you have compressed will be visible when you open it with the program. However, they cannot be unzipped for use without the password.


This is a very interesting method of creating copy di backup of our files securely. This way we can save as many files as we want in one and nobody can access them unless they have the password.


This is ideal for when you want to save a large number of photos, videos or a variety of documents. Also to be sent away Email. Can you imagine having to send 100 files in one email? No doubt it would be madness to send them as well as to those who receive them.


When you compress files and add a password, the content of the files is more secure and it is much easier to send and receive them. Therefore, it is a huge plus.

On many occasions, depending on the compression level of the selected files, the program is able to compress the files a little more without losing quality or the like. This way we can too save some disk space.

TagsTutorial PC
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