You may need to encrypt your Google drive folders to protect your data from hackers breaching data or to just keep your files secure. This way, if someone uses your pc, they won’t access the documents you don’t want them to. Do you know how to encrypt or decrypt the files in Google drive?
Find out how to protect your Google Documents and PDF files in Google Drive with a password.
Google Drive:
Cloud storage has become very popular and trending, you’re using it every single day without even knowing about it. Google drive is a cloud platform that allows you to store your files and databases. But with the online data storage comes the risk of data loss or stolen by hackers. Google Drive works on public servers, and no one can access your drive without your username and password, still it’s not very difficult for hackers to crack it open. You can secure it your data by various means. As you need to look into its security.
The owner of a Google Doc can exercise a lot of power over how a specific person accesses the file. You can give people complete ownership of the file or some level of viewing and editing permissions depending on your requirements.
Theoretically, a Google drive folder is already password-protected by your account’s password and do not require any additional protection. A great addition could be encryption. Encrypted documents will convert them into a code that will unscramble only on authorized access. So, even if someone enters your document, it would become unreadable hence useless. We can encrypt our files before uploading using the google tool called "pdf toolbox".
Keeping the Google protocols in view, the best way to ensure that no one gets hold of your Google Docs is by making sure that it's well-protected.
Here we are going to use the google add-on called "PDF Toolbox". With the help of pdf toolbox you can encrypt pdfs, which means you can password protect your pdf files, you can decrypt pdfs, that is you can remove password protection from encrypted pdf files and you can also password protect google documents spreadsheets and google slides. The add-on will convert your google document to pdf format and then it will encrypt them with your password.
Step by step procedure:
Step :1 To get started we need to download the PDF Toolbox from the Google Workspace Marketplace and click the blue install button to install the add-on in your google account.
Step :2 The first time we install this add-on, we will have to grant some permissions, since the app needs access to your files in google drive.
Step :3 Once the permissions are granted you'll see a little pdf icon in our google drive sidebar. If you do not see this sidebar, click this arrow in the lower right corner to show it in your google drive.
Step :4 Select the file in google drive and then click the pdf toolbox icon to see the available options. When we select a file in google drive the add-on does not have access to the file so we will click "authorize" to specifically grant access of that file to the add-on.
Step :5 Now we can encrypt the pdf file that is we can protect our pdf file with the password. Then we have to specify the name of the encrypted file.
Step :6 Then specify the password that you want to use for protecting the file.
Step :7 And finally we can choose whether users should be able to print or comment on the protected file. The default options should be sufficient.
Step :8 Then click the encrypt button. It may take a moment or two depending on the size of your pdf file and then wehave the encrypted file ready.
The new file has been saved to your google drive but can also be accessed from the sidebar. We can either download the file or click the view link to open this file in the browser. And as expected this pdf file requires a password to view the file, so type the password and there we have it.
Password Protect files using "Secure file encryption" add-on on Google Drive
- To password protect your Google Docs using Secure File Encryption add-on, first, you have to install the add-on.
- Go to the G-suite marketplace and search for "Secure file encryption" or go to this link
- Click on "Install" button on the top-right, of the plugin.
- Secure file encryption will need your permission to start installing. Click continue to proceed. The add-on will get added to your Google Drive.
- Now on your Google Drive, click on the "New" button in Google Drive's upper left corner, hover over "More" and select "Secure File Encryption" from the menu that appears.
- Now you can upload new file with Secure file encrytion and enter password, which will be used when file is downloaded on other pc and needs to be entered.
That's it, there are other applications, which you can consider for file protection, like BoxScript.
You may also like to read:
What is Google Authenticator and how to use it.
