Privacy is an important aspect for most people. That is why many want to hide their personal information and documents. For that reason, in this article we will show you an effective method to hide your private information.
We will explain how to hide files and folders within an image. At the end, we will also tell you how you can see those files that you have hidden again.
How to hide files and folders within an image
On the Internet there are a large number of programs that can help you do this. However, in this article we will use two programs that most people already have installed on their computers, as they are considered to be the best programs for opening compressed files.
It is WinRar or WinZip, so if you are a Windows user, we recommend that you first go through the steps to download and install WinRar or WinZip. The easiest way to hide your files involves using one of these programs. To do this, follow these steps:
- Create a new folder. If you have multiple storage devices attached, you can do it on any of them. In order not to complicate things, we recommend that the path be as short as possible, that is, do not create the folder within 7 subfolders. For our example, we will name our folder “Hello” and it will be stored on disk “F:”.
- Add all the files you want to hide to the folder you created. Also, place the image that will serve as a cover there. In our example, the image is called “Pepe” and it is in .jpg format.
- Select all files except the image. Right click on the set and add them to a compressed file, either RAR or ZIP. In our example we click on «Add to« Hello.rar »». If you have done everything correctly so far, in the folder you created in the first step should be a compressed RAR or ZIP file, the files to hide, and the cover image.
- Enter the Windows command prompt. To do this, simultaneously press Windows key + R. In the window that appears, type “cmd” and press “OK.”
- At the command prompt, open the folder you created in the first step by entering the full path. To do this, write the letter that identifies the storage device followed by a colon and press “Enter.” Then repeat the process with each subfolder until you reach the one indicated. In our case it would only be “F:”.
- Then type cd and the name of the folder that contains the files to hide, then press «Enter». In our case it would be “cd Hello”. Note that the program is case sensitive .
- Finally, type the following command and then press “Enter”: copy / b (name of the image) .jpg + (name of the compressed file) .rar (name of the image) .jpg. In our example it would be ” copy/b Pepe.jpg + Hello.rar Pepe.jpg“. To verify that the process has been successful, a message should appear at the end saying “1 file (s) copied (s)”.
If everything went according to expectations, you will have hidden your personal files within an image. Now you can delete the files, including the compressed one, and keep only the image.
That way, your information will be completely hidden. It should be noted that, according to the size of the files, you may notice that the image weighs much more than at the beginning.
To view the files that you have hidden you just have to right click on the decoy image, select the “Open with” option, click on “Browse” and look for the program with which you have compressed the file, either WinRar or WinZip.
It is interesting that if you try to open the photo with an image viewer by double clicking on it (just as you would open any common file), you will be able to view the image in full screen. Indeed, at first glance it looks like a normal photo. Thanks to this simple method you can keep your documents and folders out of public view.