These days, many people store important and confidential data on their smartphones. At times, you may wish to lock a document, invoice, personal pictures or any other file using a password. By default, Android doesn’t allows users to password protect a particular file.
Fortunately, encrypting or password protecting files on Android is possible with the help of an app called File Locker. The app protects your content against unauthorized access. The application encodes the file and makes it unreadable. Let’s learn how this app works in detail.
Locking Files With File Locker
Step 1: Install File Locker app on your device from Google’s Play Store. The app is compatible with Android 2.1 and above.
Step 2: Once installation is finished, launch the app. The app will now display all the files and folders on your device. To lock a file, long tap on it and it will open a pop-up menu.
Step 3: Tap on “Lock.” You can also select all files to lock them all at once. Now you will need to enter the password that you’ll need when you want to unlock the file. Enter a strong password and tap on “Lock.”
Important note: Don’t forget the password as there is no way to recover it. Also you will need to enter a new password every time you lock a file. If you use different passwords for different files, then it’s kind of difficult to remember them all. Therefore I would advise you to use the same password to lock all the files.
Once the file is locked, the file won’t be visible by any app or file manager.
Unlocking Files
When you want to access your file, you’ll need to unlock the file by using this app. To unlock a file, tap on “Locked” icon where you will be able to see all locked files. Tap on the file that you want to unlock and then enter the password. If you want to unlock the file for only a short time, then tap on “short time” and if you want to unlock the file permanently then remove the checkmark.
Once a file has been unlocked, you can view it in “Unlocked” section. Some supported documents can be opened directly from this app.
Points to Remember
There are some important points to remember when using this app, after all, you won’t like to lose your precious files, do you?
- Your password is not stored anywhere on the device. This means that the app just performs a simple file checksum when unlocking the file. Therefore as advised earlier, do not forget your password or you won’t be able to unlock your file.
- Once a file is locked, you will notice that the file name has been changed. Do not rename this encrypted file name, as the app won’t be able to restore original name and the file will remain locked forever.
With the above points in mind, go ahead and use this extremely simple app to protect files on your Android smartphone.
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