How to encrypt compressed files the easy way from Windows, macOS, or Linux – TechRepublic

Learn to secure multiple documents by encrypting compressed files on various OSes using a password.

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When considering how to share data efficiently, cloud storage has a leg up on hardware by making it easy to share files and folders with users across the globe with a few clicks. Because the data is only transmitted from server to client provides little impact on bandwidth for the sender and recipient. But storing data on the cloud is not the most secure practice since that data is effectively placed in the hands of a third party.

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This is especially true of data that is sensitive or confidential in nature. The trade-off is that this type of data should be shared directly between those who require access to it and no one else. By using compressed file types, such as ZIP, a sender can place multiple documents, including entire directories, together and compress them as a single file making it easy to share, while using strong algorithms to encrypt the contents based on a password that only the recipients will know.

While this technology has existed for decades, modern OSes typically focus on cloud-based sharing services when providing options for users to share data. But that native functionality is present in Windows, macOS, and Linux, and can be accessed simply by entering a few commands into the CLI. Follow below as we go over the steps to perform this on each platform.

Windows supports creating compressed files via PowerShell from v5.0+, however, while it natively supports ZIP creation it does not support encryption and has a file limit of just 2GB. In the interest of simplicity and for the purposes of this article, I recommend leveraging the 7-zip module for PowerShell to get around these limitations.

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How to encrypt compressed files the easy way from Windows, macOS, or Linux - TechRepublic