How To Password-Protect Documents On a Mac

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today  

let me show you how to password protect and encrypt documents. 

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So I'm often asked how you can password protect a document on your Mac.  

So I'm going to show you a few methods. But first let me tell you why it's probably not necessary.  

Everybody that uses a Mac should have their own user account and should have it password  

protected. You should be the only one that has the password to your account.  

Now as long as you have that setup and you don't leave it unlocked and lying around for other  

people to access then all of your files are really password protected. Nobody can get into your  

account so nobody could see any of your files. If you have File Vault turned on then everything  

is encrypted so even if somebody steals your computer they still can't get into those files no  

matter what they do. So in most cases when people ask me about password protecting or encrypting  

a document it's really not necessary. But there are few situations that do occasionally come up.

For instance, you may not own your Mac. It may be a company Mac. Other people may actually have  

access to it. You may want to protect a file from anybody else that wants to look. For instance you  

may store a file with some notes for a future job search and you want to make sure that your  

boss can't see that. Sometimes we also put files in public places. Like you may have a company  

or school web server where you can put a file and it's kind of out of your control. Maybe  

other people could easily see it or maybe it's a little more difficult but you want to make sure  

that if somebody does have access to it they can't open it without a password.  

Another reason you may want to password protect a document is when sending it to somebody else over  

email. Email technically really isn't that secure. So if you have to send something that's very  

sensitive you may want to password protect the document. Of course in that case you don't want  

to include the password in the email that also has the document as an attachment. So you want  

to talk to the person on the phone or maybe send them a message some other way with the password.

Another reason is you may want to give a document to somebody but not let them have  

access to it right away. In other words give somebody a document with emergency instructions  

but only give them the password if that emergency occurs. Or maybe give students  

a quiz and then another document with the answers but don't give them the password  

to the answers right away. Then, of course, there are those people that just want to have  

a double layer of security. The just will sleep a little bit better at night knowing that some  

sensitive information is not only stored behind the password wall in their account  

but also somebody needs a different password to actually open that document.

Alright, so how do you password protect a document? Well, let's start with Pages, Numbers,  

and Keynote.The primary document creation apps on your Mac. It's really easy to do this in these  

apps. So here I've got a Pages document and if I go to File, there's Set Password. I just use that  

and set a Password. You could put a password hint for yourself if you want.  

You could also say remember this Password in my Keychain. Meaning that the document could  

be easily opened up on your Mac but if you put it somewhere else or share it with somebody else  

they're not going to have access to your Keychain so they'll need a password. This  

is a great option because it means you're not really inconvenienced by the password but other  

people need it to get access to the document in other locations. Then when you set the password  

now if you close the document and then try to open it again it asks for the password.  

Now the document is opened and you can use it as a normal document until you close it again.

Once a password is set you can go back here and it's Change Password now.  

You have to enter the Old Password and then a New Password and Verify. Or you can use  

this button here to Remove the password. So you can temporarily password protect a document and  

then remove the password later. Now in Numbers and Keynote they work the same way. Go to File  

and you have Set Password. It's exactly the same options. Here it is in Keynote.  

Now other apps may or may not offer this option and may put it in a different place.

So, for instance, Microsoft Word certainly does offer this. You have to go to Tools  

and then down here you've got Protect Document. But that's not the only way to Password Protect  

a document. You could also create a PDF from just about any app and assign a password to it.  

So you could put some sensitive information say in a Pages document that you have,  

create a PDF and the PDF requires a password and that's the one you Share with somebody  

else over email or on a shared server or something like that. So here in Pages if  

I want to produce a PDF I could do it one of two ways. One is I could go to File, Export To,  

PDF. Then in here I can select require password to open. Here i could set password, verify it,  

and include a hint. Then I'll save the PDF. So I'll Save this here to the Desktop. Now you could  

even see the PDF has a little lock there. It, of course, won't show you a preview of what's in the  

PDF in the icon because it's Password Protected. If I try to open it up it tries to open it in  

Preview and it prompts me to enter the Password first before I get access to the information.

Now the other way to create a PDF in Pages and just about any app is to go to File,  

and then Print. As long as you could print you could usually get to a PDF Menu here and you  

could Save As PDF. One of the options you've got then is Security Options here. Click that and you  

could require a password to Open the document. You could also require the password to copy text,  

and to print. Now what's great about that is you could take apps that don't have any password  

protection option and still create password protected PDF's from them. So, for instance,  

TextEdit. I could go in here and say Print. I could go to PDF and Save As PDF and I've got  

those same security options here. You can do that from anything. So, for instance, you could be on a  

private web server that people normally don't have access to. If you want to Share some information  

there you could go and Print the webpage that you're looking at and then choose Save As PDF  

and then assign a password to that PDF. So now you can share it to somebody else who may not  

have access to that website but they still need a password just to see the information in the PDF.

Now one other note. There is a difference between Password Protecting a document and encrypting it.  

But not in this case. In this case everything I'm showing you actually encrypts a document.  

Password Protection without encryption really isn't worth anything as somebody can actually  

look at the bits in the file and see what's in there. Then the password protection isn't any kind  

of real security. So when you Password Protect a document in Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Word,  

or you Password Protect in PDF you're actually encrypting it and adding a password that's the key  

to decrypting it. The difference between password protecting a document like Pages,  

Numbers, Keynote, or Word and password protecting PDF is PDF by its nature is kind of the finished  

document. You're not going to be editing a PDF. Whereas you will be editing those other file  

types. So if it's something you need to update all the time or collaborate with somebody else on then  

you want a password protect the actual document so that you can continue to work on it and  

update it. But if it's a document with finished information then create a password protected PDF.