How to Password Protect Folders in Linux

Sometimes you may want to password protect folders & directories in Linux, in case you need to store sensitive information in them. Such protection secures these folders from unauthorized access even if they get access to your computer. Cryptkeeper is a simple app that manages encrypted folders. In this article, we will look at how to password protect folders in Linux.

How to Password Protect Folders in Linux

Here are the steps to password protect folders in Linux.

1. Install Cryptkeeper

Open terminal and run the following command to install cryptkeeper in Linux.

RHEL/Fedora/CentOS

$ sudo yum install cryptkeeper

Ubuntu/Debian

Please note, cryptkeeper is available only until Ubuntu 18.04. From Ubuntu 20.04 onwards, it is a part of GNOME EncFS.

$ sudo apt-get install cryptkeeper

2. Open Cryptkeeper

Depending on your Linux distribution, follow these steps to open cryptkeeper.

RHEL/Fedora/CentOS

Go to Applications → System Tools → Cryptkeeper to launch Cryptkeeper.

Ubuntu/Debian

Go to Applications → System Tools → Cryptkeeper to launch Cryptkeeper.

Sometimes it may not be visible in system tray due to whitelisting policy. In such cases, open terminal and run the following command to open systray whitelist policy.

$ gsettings get com.canonical.Unity.Panel systray-whitelist

You will see the following output.

['JavaEmbeddedFrame', 'Wine', 'Update-notifier']

Run the following command to add Cryptkeeper to systray whitelist.

$ gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Panel systray-whitelist "['JavaEmbeddedFrame', 'Wine', 'Update-notifier', 'Cryptkeeper']"

3. Encrypt Folder with CryptKeeper

Once it is started, Cryptkeeper will be visible on system tray on top right/bottom right corner. Click on its icon and choose ‘New encrypted folder’ to create new encrypted folder.