How to Password Protect an SD Memory Card on Windows PC

By Justin SabrinaUpdated on March 21, 2022

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We have already wrote some useful tutorial about how to encrypt folders or how to password protect files on Windows and Mac. However, it’s necessary and important to password protect external disks and all external portable media like SD card, USB flash drives, Thumb Drives, Memory Sticks, Memory Cards, Pen Drives and Jump Drives, in order to avoid the important data stored on external disks being leaked.

How to Encrypt/Decrypt an SD Card?
“I am a photographer, I have a few SD memory cards that store many of my personal photos and files, I want to encrypt or password protect my SD cards, but I don’t know how to do it. I want these portable drive to be password-protected and I can be the only one who can access the drive. Do you know how to password protect or encrypt the SD card?” - Asked by Yonetsu, a professional photographer

Why We Ned to Password Protect SD Memory Card?

SD cards are widely used in digital product memory storage. Especially in digital cameras and mobile phones, people use SD cards to store photos, videos, audio files, applications and files. However, what is your device is lost? Anyone can access the SD card and view your important data unless you password protect it or encrypt your SD card.

When others access your data in your SD card, you have no idea what they will do with it. They can misuse the data by uploading your private information to third-party to public websites without your knowledge. However, you can avoid this by password-protecting the SD card and encryption. I will show you how to do it.

There are 2 easy and effective methods to password protect your SD memory card on Windows.
We can encrypt an SD card with Windows built-in encryption tool called Bitlocker, or password protect SD card and USB flash drive with third-party SD card encryption software. Therefore, I will show you the detail steps on how to encrypt SD card by using Bitlocker and professional SD card encryption software.

Way 1: How to Password Protect SD Card with BitLocker

To begin, you must format your SD card using an NTFS, FAT16, FA32, or exFAT file system before encrypting it using Bitlocker.

Step 1. Click This PC. First right-click on the SD card you want to encrypt with BitLocker and then click on the option Turn on BitLocker.

Step 2. Now you can see a screen popping up, and just check the Use a password to unlock the drive box. Here we mainly explain how to password protect an SD card. But if you have a smart card, you can do this job by checking the option Use my smart card to unlock the drive.

Enter your password and retype it again. We recommend that you’d better set a strong password, but make sure to remember it unless you are going to store the recovery key on your PC or any other location. Then just click the Next button to proceed the following process.

Step 3. Here, you will be able to choose the option to save the recovery key. If you forget your password or lose your smart card, you can use it to access the SD card and the data in it. Then select one of the options and save the key according to the on-screen instructions.

Step 4. Now, you have to choose one between the two options below:
- Encrypt used disk space only
- Encrypt entire drive

If you have no idea and need our suggestion, we will recommend the second option for you! And then click the Next button.

Step 5. When you see the screen presented below, just check the Compatible mode option and then click on the Next button.

Step 6. At this point you will be able to start encrypting your SD card. Just click the Start Encryption option to start the encryption process. The time it takes to complete encryption is determined by the size of the SD card and the size of the data in it.

Way 2: How to Password Protect SD Card with Professional Data Encryption Tool

On the internet, there is plenty of encryption software chooseable, you simply need to choose the most appropriate and dependable one. However, which is the best data encryption for SD card? Is there any free USB encryption tool to password protect files on a USB drive or SD memory card? You have came a right place, here’s a quick overview of our top picks for two best SD Card Encryption tools:

Two Powerful SD Card Encryption Recommended

I strongly recommend UkeySoft File Lock and UkeySoft USB Encryption, both are devoted to USB data security concerns include information exposure, data breaches, and the misuse of private files.

UkeySoft USB Encryption is a professional and powerful data encryption for all external USB drives, it enables you to encrypt USB flash drive by dividing external drive into two parts: Secure area and Public area. If you want to encrypt your SD card, you can use this tool to divide your SD memory card into secure area and public area, so that you’re able to put your import data to the secure area and set a password to protect them, no one can access the secure area without a password.

Ukeysoft File Lock is powered by the powerful AES 256-bit military-grade encryption algorithm technology, which can password protect any file/folder or even the entire storage device with high intensity. So you can securely encrypt SD card with Ukeysoft File Lock. In addition, it also can hide or lock files in SD card and USB flash drive. Here are the detail guide on how to password protect files/folders in SD card easily.

How to Password Protect Data on SD Card with Ukeysoft File Lock

Step 1. Install and Launch UkeySoft File Lock
You have to download the program on your computer first, and launch it when you completed the installation.Then, you need to type initial password “123456” into program interface if this is your first time running the program.

Step 2. Enter External Disk Encryption Mode
In this case, you should find the "External Disk" from the left sidebar of the program, then insert a USB flash drive or use a card reader to connect the SD card to your computer.

Step 3. Add Files/Folders to Encrypt in SD Card
This section allows you to officially encrypt the contents of the USB Flash Drive or SD card by clicking the "Lock File" or "Lock Folder" icons in the two columns on the right. If you do this, a pop-up window displays the file/folder menu for selecting files - photos, videos, audios, documents, etc. or folder you want to encrypt. Select them correctly, then click "Open".

A pop-up window will appear on the password settings, click the "Lock" button when the settings are complete. When you're done, you can confirm that the file/folder successfully blocked people from accessing the file/folder and need to enter a password to access the data.

Step 4 Decrypt a Encrypted SD card
If you want to unlock a previously encrypted file/folder/drive, launch the software and click on the "External Disk" function to find the password protected file/folder/drive.

Step 5. Decrypt Your Protected Files
If you have correctly selected the file you need to decrypt, open the file or folder and a new window pops up. You need to type in the password you have set and click the "Unlock" button. Tell you a good news that you have successfully unlocked the files and now you can browse these files/folders/drives without any protection.

Download UkeySoft File Lock for Windows to password protect data on your SD memory card.

Conclusion

Due to the easy portability and powerful data storage capacity of SD cards, nowadays, the SD cards are widely used as a data storage medium. Be aware that data can leak or get lost, encrypt and password protect SD cards are now trending among digital product users. This is because whether you are using a digital camera or an android phone, keeping SD cards safe is essential.

In the discussions above, I mentioned 2 methods to password protect your SD cards to help keep your files safe. If you lose the card with an encrypted password, you won’t worry about the private files in it since no one can access it without the encryption key.