Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today let me show you how to password
protect and encrypt documents. MacMost is brought to you thanks to a
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content and course discounts. So I'm often asked how you can password
protect a document on your Mac. So I'm going to show you a few methods. But first
let me tell you why it's probably not necessary. Everybody that uses a Mac should have their
own user account and should have it password protected. You should be the only one
that has the password to your account. Now as long as you have that setup and you don't
leave it unlocked and lying around for other people to access then all of your files are really
password protected. Nobody can get into your account so nobody could see any of your files.
If you have File Vault turned on then everything is encrypted so even if somebody steals your
computer they still can't get into those files no matter what they do. So in most cases when people
ask me about password protecting or encrypting a document it's really not necessary. But there
are few situations that do occasionally come up. For instance, you may not own your Mac. It may
be a company Mac. Other people may actually have access to it. You may want to protect a file from
anybody else that wants to look. For instance you may store a file with some notes for a future
job search and you want to make sure that your boss can't see that. Sometimes we also put files
in public places. Like you may have a company or school web server where you can put a file
and it's kind of out of your control. Maybe other people could easily see it or maybe it's a
little more difficult but you want to make sure that if somebody does have access to it
they can't open it without a password. Another reason you may want to password protect a
document is when sending it to somebody else over email. Email technically really isn't that secure.
So if you have to send something that's very sensitive you may want to password protect the
document. Of course in that case you don't want to include the password in the email that also
has the document as an attachment. So you want to talk to the person on the phone or maybe send
them a message some other way with the password. Another reason is you may want to give a
document to somebody but not let them have access to it right away. In other words give
somebody a document with emergency instructions but only give them the password if that
emergency occurs. Or maybe give students a quiz and then another document with the
answers but don't give them the password to the answers right away. Then, of course,
there are those people that just want to have a double layer of security. The just will sleep
a little bit better at night knowing that some sensitive information is not only stored
behind the password wall in their account but also somebody needs a different
password to actually open that document. Alright, so how do you password protect a
document? Well, let's start with Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.The primary document creation apps
on your Mac. It's really easy to do this in these apps. So here I've got a Pages document and if I
go to File, there's Set Password. I just use that and set a Password. You could put a
password hint for yourself if you want. You could also say remember this Password in
my Keychain. Meaning that the document could be easily opened up on your Mac but if you put
it somewhere else or share it with somebody else they're not going to have access to your
Keychain so they'll need a password. This is a great option because it means you're not
really inconvenienced by the password but other people need it to get access to the document in
other locations. Then when you set the password now if you close the document and then try
to open it again it asks for the password. Now the document is opened and you can use it
as a normal document until you close it again. Once a password is set you can go back
here and it's Change Password now. You have to enter the Old Password and then
a New Password and Verify. Or you can use this button here to Remove the password. So you
can temporarily password protect a document and then remove the password later. Now in Numbers
and Keynote they work the same way. Go to File and you have Set Password. It's exactly
the same options. Here it is in Keynote. Now other apps may or may not offer this
option and may put it in a different place. So, for instance, Microsoft Word certainly
does offer this. You have to go to Tools and then down here you've got Protect Document.
But that's not the only way to Password Protect a document. You could also create a PDF from
just about any app and assign a password to it. So you could put some sensitive information
say in a Pages document that you have, create a PDF and the PDF requires a password
and that's the one you Share with somebody else over email or on a shared server or
something like that. So here in Pages if I want to produce a PDF I could do it one of
two ways. One is I could go to File, Export To, PDF. Then in here I can select require password
to open. Here i could set password, verify it, and include a hint. Then I'll save the PDF. So
I'll Save this here to the Desktop. Now you could even see the PDF has a little lock there. It, of
course, won't show you a preview of what's in the PDF in the icon because it's Password Protected.
If I try to open it up it tries to open it in Preview and it prompts me to enter the Password
first before I get access to the information. Now the other way to create a PDF in Pages
and just about any app is to go to File, and then Print. As long as you could print you
could usually get to a PDF Menu here and you could Save As PDF. One of the options you've got
then is Security Options here. Click that and you could require a password to Open the document.
You could also require the password to copy text, and to print. Now what's great about that is
you could take apps that don't have any password protection option and still create password
protected PDF's from them. So, for instance, TextEdit. I could go in here and say Print. I
could go to PDF and Save As PDF and I've got those same security options here. You can do that
from anything. So, for instance, you could be on a private web server that people normally don't have
access to. If you want to Share some information there you could go and Print the webpage that
you're looking at and then choose Save As PDF and then assign a password to that PDF. So now
you can share it to somebody else who may not have access to that website but they still need a
password just to see the information in the PDF. Now one other note. There is a difference between
Password Protecting a document and encrypting it. But not in this case. In this case everything
I'm showing you actually encrypts a document. Password Protection without encryption really
isn't worth anything as somebody can actually look at the bits in the file and see what's in
there. Then the password protection isn't any kind of real security. So when you Password Protect
a document in Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Word, or you Password Protect in PDF you're actually
encrypting it and adding a password that's the key to decrypting it. The difference between
password protecting a document like Pages, Numbers, Keynote, or Word and password protecting
PDF is PDF by its nature is kind of the finished document. You're not going to be editing a PDF.
Whereas you will be editing those other file types. So if it's something you need to update all
the time or collaborate with somebody else on then you want a password protect the actual document
so that you can continue to work on it and update it. But if it's a document with finished
information then create a password protected PDF.
