How Do You Zip And Password Protect Files In As Few Steps As Possible

If you have a large batch of files to compress and you want to add password protection to each of them, what is the simplest or quickest way to do so? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a curious reader’s question.

Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites.

The Question

SuperUser reader DAE wants to know how to zip and password protect files in as few steps as possible:

How do you zip and password protect files in as few steps as possible?

Is there a command that I can add to the batch file that includes the password? Or alternatively, how can I create a batch file that will password protect the compressed files?

The Answer

SuperUser contributor DavidPostill has the answer for us:

Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.

Use the -p option, -p (set password) switch, which specifies the password.

Syntax

-p{password}

{password} specifies the password

Examples

Compresses *.txt files to archive.7z using the password “secret”. It also encrypts archive headers (-mhe switch) so that the file names will be encrypted.

7z a archive. 7z -psecret -mhe *. txt

If compressing folders:

“C:\Program Files (x86)\7-Zip\7z. exe” a “%%X. zip” -psecret “%%X\”

Extracts all files from archive.zip using the password “secret”.

7z x archive. zip -psecret

Source: -p (set Password) switch