How To Hide A Folder In Laptop

Disclaimer: If you’re a fan of modesty, one of the infallible ways to make your OS cleaner is to hide folders in Windows 10. Though Microsoft hides several folders by default, you may find that your drives fill up with rarely accessed content over time. In this blog, here we try to explain to you an easy way to show how to hide files in Windows 10 and how to view hidden files in Windows 10. 

Nowadays, privacy is all that matters - passwords, keys, user approval; everything revolves around this concept, and it's for the best understanding of how many troubles have emerged recently. 

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This is particularly true of the documents folder, which over time will accumulate configuration files, game saves, and other clutter that can make it difficult to remain productive.

Hidden Folders in Windows 10

We are going to show you how to hide folders on Windows 10 so you can keep your documents or games etc private or just get them out of the way. We’ll also show you how to show hidden files and unhide hidden files if you want to get them back.

How to show hidden files or folders on a Windows 10 laptop

1. Press the Windows icon at the bottom-left of your screen. and search for this PC application. Click it to open it.

2. You'll be greeted with a listing of all your computer's drives. Open the one that has the files you're looking for. In most cases, "C:" will be the one you need.

3. Once you're on the next page, at the top of the window there should be a toolbar with a button that says "View." Click on that.

4. Find the checkbox called "Hidden Items." Click it so that a checkbox appears.

5. As long as Hidden Items remain checked, you'll be able to view any hidden file or folder.

You can tell that a file or folder was marked as hidden by its icon, which will be slightly transparent.

You can also tick a file or folder as hidden, which is a good way to keep your files private. Here's how:

How to make a hidden file or folder on a Windows 10 computer

1. Find the file or folder you want to hide.

2. Right-click it, and select "Properties."

3. In the menu that appears, check the box that's labeled "Hidden."

4. Click "OK" at the bottom of the window.

5. Your file or folder is now hidden.

You can undo a hidden file or folder at any time to make it visible.

Usually, system files and folders are hidden for a reason, and it's best to know that reason before you edit files that are hidden by default.

How to Hide Files in Windows 10 with File Explorer

Now, as you might have guessed, the easiest way to hide a file or folder in Windows 10 is through File Explorer. Not very pretty, but who cares as long as the job gets done?

The most inherent way to hide a folder in Windows 10 is through File Explorer. An easily accessible trackbar makes it trivial for anyone to declutter their drives. Here’s how you can access it: 

1. Open the folder or file properties

Before you can hide folders or files, you need to right-click the item in question and select “Properties”.

2. Select the file or folder hide box

In the “General” tab of your file properties, look for the “Hidden” checkbox and select it. If you hide a file, that’s all you need to do. When you hide folders, however, you must follow the additional step before.

Meanwhile, if you’re wondering how to unhide folders in Windows 10, that’s simple – just untick the Hidden box.
Press “OK” when you’re done.

3. Apply the folder hide to subfolders and files

A hidden folder in Windows 10 has two options: you can hide just the root directory or can hide both of its subfolders and files.

You may be wondering what the point of this is if the base folder will be gone from File Explorer anyway. The answer is that if you don’t hide subfolders and files, they may still show in search results even if they’re not easily accessible through File Explorer.

In most cases, you’ll want to click on “Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files” and press “OK”.

4. How to show hidden files on Windows 10

If you accidentally hide the wrong folder or need to access one again, you can see hidden files in Windows Explorer with this easy push button:

In your File Explorer ribbon, click the “View” tab, then look for the “Show/hide” section. Untick the option that reads “Hidden items”. Your hidden folders and files will then display with a slightly grayed-out icon.

How to Hide a Folder in Windows 10 with Command Prompt

Ready? First, you’ll need to figure out what files and folders you want to hide. For this blog, I’ve created a second folder in My Documents, which I named “Gib shares''. Inside, I’ve dumped a .jpeg file called crazy Russian. So, now, I will try and hide crazyrussian.jpeg using the command prompt. So for example:

Step 1. Ensure that all the files are where they’re supposed to be.

Step 2. Click on Start and type in “command line”.

Step 3. Click on the Command Line icon or hit Enter to continue.

Step 4. In CMD, type in or paste the following line:

 attrib C:\Users\V\Documents\Gib shares\crazyrussian.jpg +s +h

Step 5. Hit Enter to continue.

Note: while performing this operation, you should swap the above-mentioned path with the location of your folder. If you’re too lazy to type in the whole path of the folder, you can always use File Explorer.

Open the folder using Explorer, select the path, and copy it. Go back to the command prompt and simply paste the line. Now you only need to add the file you wish to hide and +s and +h attributes.

By the way, +s stands for System file, which means that it will be used by the operating system, while +h, which stands for hidden, instructs the OS that the file attributed this way will not show up in the GUI nor be indexed by Windows’ search engine.

That’s about it how to hide files on Windows 10. Of course, being the precise kind, I’ve searched for even more ways to hide stuff. Enjoy!

If you’re on a GUI-less install or need to automate the process, you can also hide folders and files in Windows 10 with a command. We’ll show you how below. The commands work both on the Command Prompt and in PowerShell:

1. Open Command Prompt

• Tab Start and type “CMD”, then press the top result, “Command Prompt”.

2. Select the folder you want to hide and run the ‘attrib +h’ command

• Before we can perform our folder hide or file hide, we need to navigate to its parent folder.
  For example, we want to hide the “Personal Files” folder. This is in our OneDrive documents folder, so we’ll navigate to Documents in CMD with the cd command:

cd C:\Users\yourusername\OneDrive\Documents

3. Now that we’re here, we can hide a directory or file by adding the +h attribute to it:

attrib +h "Personal Files"

4. Switch Personal Files out for the name of your folder or file.

5. Hide files and subfolders

• If you’re hiding a file, that’s all you need to do. If you want to hide a folder, you’ll want to run one more command. Though we’ve hidden the root folder, we still need to hide all of the files and folders inside of it. To do that, you can navigate inside the folder with cd "Your Folder" and run the following command:

attrib +h /s /d

6. All of the items with the hidden attribute will now be invisible.

How to Unhide Folders and Files with Command Prompt

Now, if you want to undo the changes (unhide a hidden file), you only need to change the operators in front of the “s” and “h” attributes. So, instead of a “+”, you should “-“. Let me give you a quick example:

attrib C:\Users\V\Documents\Gib shares\crazyrussian.jpg -s -h

You can unhide folders or files with Command Prompt with a very similar command to hiding them. This time, however, we have to remove the hidden attribute rather than add it. Here’s how:

1. Open Command Prompt

• Press Start and type “CMD”, then click the top result, “Command Prompt”.

2. Unhide a folder of file with the ‘attrib’ command

• In your Command Prompt Window, navigate the parent directory of the file or folder you’d like to unhide. In our case, we want to unhide a folder called “Personal Files”, which is in our OneDrive Documents folder:

cd C:\Users\username\OneDrive\Documents

3. Switch the above command with the path to your parent folder and press Enter. Then run the attrib -h command to unhide the file or folder of your choice:
   attrib -h "Folder or File name"

4. Unhide subfolders and files in window 10

• If you unhide a folder with the above method, you’ll notice that its sub-folders and files will still be hidden. You can remedy this by navigating to the folder with cd "Folder Name" and running:

attrib -h /s /d

5. There you have it. You now know how to hide or unhide folders and files in Windows 10. 

Checking if a file\folder is hidden

Step 1. Go through File Explorer. You can do that by double-clicking on the File Explorer icon on your desktop or by pressing the Windows + E key buttons.

Step 2. select View.

Step 3. Select Options (it’s in the far-right corner, right next to the show\hide section).

Step 4. From Options, select the Change folder and search options.

Step 5. Click on the View tab.

Step 6. Scroll until you see the Hidden files and folder drop-down menu.

Step 7. Check the box next to the “don’t show hidden files, folders, or drives” option.

Step 8. Click Apply to commit changes.

Step 9. Press the Ok button to close the window.

How to password-protect a folder in Windows 10

Because you were patient enough to read the blog to the end (hope I didn’t bore you to death), I’m going to show you how to password-protect a folder in Windows 10.

Step 1. Gather whatever stuff you would like to lock in your password-protected folder (documents, videos, audio clips). For ease of access, I would recommend creating a new folder and putting everything in there.

Step 2. When ready, right-click anywhere on the screen (make sure the folder’s open), select new, and highlight Text document.

Step 3. Double-click on the newly created text document.

Step 4. Paste the following text into the text document:

close

@ECHO OFF

title Folder Locker

if EXIST "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" goto UNLOCK

if NOT EXIST Locker goto MDLOCKER

: CONFIRM

echo Are you sure you want to lock the folder(Y/N)

set/p "cho=>"

if %cho%==Y goto LOCK

if %cho%==y goto LOCK

if %cho%==n goto END

if %cho%==N goto END

echo Invalid choice.

goto CONFIRM

: LOCK

ren Locker "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"

attrib +h +s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"

echo Folder locked

goto End

: UNLOCK

echo Enter password to Unlock folder

set/p "pass=>"

if NOT %pass%==Your-Password-Here goto FAIL

attrib -h -s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"

ren "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" Locker

echo Folder Unlocked successfully

goto End

: FAIL

echo Invalid password

goto end

: MDLOCKER

MD Locker

echo Locker created successfully

goto End

: End

 Step 5. To set your password, delete the line reading “Your Password Here” and replace it with anything. Here’s how it should look:

If NOT %pass%==Youshallnotpass goto FAIL

Step 6. Click on File and select the Save As option.

Step 7. Under Save as Type, select All Files.

Step 8. Under file name, delete everything and replace it with FolderLocker.bat

Step 9. Click Save and exit the document. If you receive a prompt regarding the extension change, tick on Yes to confirm.

Step 10. In the Explorer Window, double-click on Folder Locker .bat executable. You will see that the Locker folder will appear in the same location as the hide-to-be files.

Step 11. Place the files you want to password-protect in the Locker folder.

Step 12. Double-click again on the FolderLocker .bat executable.

Step 13. A command prompt window will appear with the following message: “Are you sure you want to lock the folder (Y/N)”

Step 14. Type in “Y” and press Enter. The command prompt window will now be closed.

Step 15. To unlock the contents of the Locker folder, double-click on the FolderLocker .bat executable. A new command prompt window will appear asking you to type in the password. Enter the password, hit Enter, and voila! you now have access to your footlocker. 

Conclusion: 

Well, that’s about all I could round up on how to hide folders on Windows 10. Of course, there are always more ways to do just that, but it involves messing with third-party tools which I found to be rather difficult to use. 

This is particularly true of the documents folder, which over time will accumulate configuration files, game saves, and other clutter that can make it difficult to remain productive. I hope you understand all the easy methods which I mentioned above about how to hide files in Windows 10 and how to unhide folders in Windows 10. For more private assurance I also mentioned how to password-protect a folder in Windows 10. If you like this blog just let us know about your experience reading it or if is this helpful to you.