How to Password Protect USB Drive in Windows?

By ChesterUpdated on March 14, 2023

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Why do we need to password protect USB drive in Windows?
USB drive is an important and convenient tool for us to use in our work and life. The USB stick with a tiny size which can be easily lost and the information in it also can be easily leaked if it has no password to protect. Then, your precious data will be easily seen by other people who have bad intention. If so, you will face a huge loss which you can’t control. How horrible events happen if your precious digital information be leaked in a USB drive you don’t encrypt! So in order to avoid this horrible disaster happening to you, it is an important and normal thing to password protect your USB flash drive after you have one. However, how to password protect the USB drive in Windows? In this post, you can find the answer.

Contents

Method 1: Password Protect USB Drive in Window 10 via BitLocker

If your computer with the system of professional and Enterprise versions of Windows 10, you can to encrypt your USB drive via BitLocker. BitLocker is a built-in system which you can password protect you USB drive for free. Then, accessing your USB drive, the person must need an authority-a right password. Setting the BitLocker to encrypt your USB stick, please read and follow these steps below.

Step 1. Insert your USB you want to encrypt in your Windows 10 PC which is professional and Enterprise versions.

Step 2. Go to “This PC”, and right click the USB drive. Then, a box is coming and you need to select “Turn on BitLocker”.

Step 3. Now, you need to choose how you want to unlock this drive. tick “Use a password to unlock this drive”, and enter a password only you know. Then, click on “Next”.

Step 4. In this part, a screen with a question you can see ”How do you want to back up your recovery key?”. We recommend you to click on “Save to a file” and click on “Next”.

Step 5. This screen tells you “Choose how much of your drive to encrypt”. At this time, we recommend you select “Encrypt entire drive” and click on “Next”.

Step 6. Choose which encryption mode to use. You’d better choose “Compatible mode” to protect your USB drive and click on “Next”.

Step 7. In this part, the screen prompts you “Are you ready to encrypt this drive?” If you are ready, and click on “Start encrypting”.

After you completed the above steps, your USB drive can be encrypted and you must enter a password to access it.

Method 2: Password Protect Microsoft Office files in USB Drive

Due to the use of Microsoft Office files, including word, excel, and powerpoint, is essential in our work and life. So we also can password protect the Microsoft Office files to protect your files in a USB drive. Then people can’t access your files in the USB drive who don’t know the right password. To do this, you can follow these steps below.

Step 1. Open your USB drive, and find a file you want to set a password to. Go to click on “info” under “file”. Then, select the “Protect Document”. At last, select "Encrypt with Password".

Step 2. Type a password and confirm it before clicking “OK”.

Once done, your Microsoft Office file is encrypted and you need to enter a password to read and write the file in your USB drive. However, if you want to encrypt many files, you will need to set many passwords for files. Sometimes, it may be troublesome.

Method 3: Password Protect USB Drive via UkeySoft USB Encryption

If your computer doesn’t have BitLocker and you don’t want to set many passwords for files. Here is a useful third-party tool called UkeySoft USB Encryption to help you password protect your USB drive. UkeySoft USB Encryption uses the industry-standard 256-bits AES encryption, works in all versions of Windows 10 and as well as many other Windows versions, such as Windows8/7, etc. You can use this tool to lock, protect and encrypt your whole USB stick safely, easily and directly. See how it works.

Step 1. Download and Install UkeySoft USB Encryption
Download, install and launch UkeySoft USB Encryption on your Windows PC

Step 2. Insert a USB drive to PC and turn on UkeySoft USB Encryption
You need to connect a USB drive you want to password protect to computer and run on UkeySoft USB Encryption.

Notice: The following steps will format your USB drive, please save your data in the USB drive.

Step 3. Select a USB Drive
The program can detect your USB drive quickly and automatically. Then, select the inserted USB drive to password protect.

Step 4. Set Secure Area
Now you need to set secure Area. You can see “create a secure area on the disk” in the screen and you can move the arrow to set the size of a secure area.

Step 5. Start Creating Secure Area
After, you set a secure area, click on “Install” button and create secure area.

Step 6. Set a Password
You need to set a password for the secure area. Type your password two times and click on “OK”.

Please wait. Then, you are successful to create secure area in the USB drive and click on “OK”.

Step 7. Add your file/folder to the Secure Area
Now, you have set a secure area in your USB drive. Once you open your USB stick, you can see “agent.exe” application, double click “agent.exe” and enter password to open the secure area add your file/folder into.

Tips: Well down, your USB drive is divided into two parts, the secure area which you need to enter a password to access and the public area which can be accessed freely. The files and folders in the secure area can be well password protected.

Conclusion

If you are a user of Windows 10 with professional and enterprise versions, you can try to password protect your USB drive via BitLocker.

If you are not a user of Windows 10 with professional and enterprise versions and feel something troublesome to encrypt every MS Office file, or need a more professional encryption tool to encrypt a USB drive, please use UkeySoft USB Encryption which is a professional and trustworthy encryption tool and convenient for you.