PC World - USA (2021-01)

108 PCWorld JANUARY 2022

HERE’S HOW HOW TO ENCRYPT FILES IN WINDOWS

you that the volume is ready.

You can now navigate to where the

container is just to verify its existence and

see its file size, if that is important to you.

You’ll notice that clicking on it

does nothing, as you have to

use the Veracrypt program to

actually open it, so let’s do that

now ( 8 ).

Now it’s time to access your

encrypted volume. Open

Veracrypt and choose Select File

from the main menu, and then

navigate to the folder where it’s

located. You’ll also need to

choose a volume letter from the

list provided, so choose one that

is not in use, such as X or M—

something like that. Once you’ve

chosen the volume letter and

navigated to the file, you should

click Mount ( 9 ).

After that completes, you’ll

see the same window with the

path to your file in blue. Double-

click that and the volume will

open. You will also see the same

volume appear in This PC as well,

if you prefer that method.

Et voilà—here are our

encrypted files ( 10 )! These are

quite sensitive and top-secret

cat photos, obviously, but you

should feel free to throw

anything you want in there, knowing that

it’s about as secure as it can possibly be

for now.

One final note: As long as the volume is

8.

9.