Create a Password Protected ZIP

By  on  

Have you ever wanted to put very basic security (a passphrase) on a file?  You can do so if you ZIP the file -- let's have a look at how you can password-protect a ZIP file!

Creating a password protected ZIP file from command line is done so via the following command:

# zip -er {file name to be created} {source directory or file}
zip -er my-generated-file.zip source-file.rtf

When someone tries to unzip the file, they'll be prompted for a password.

Don't be under any illusion that a password makes the ZIP file too secure:  ZIP files don't self-destruct after a given number of attempts so a brute force effort to crack the password would ultimately be effective.  If you do, however, want a very basic level of security for the contents of a file, this command will get you there.

Recent Features

  • By
    CSS vs. JS Animation: Which is Faster?

    How is it possible that JavaScript-based animation has secretly always been as fast — or faster — than CSS transitions? And, how is it possible that Adobe and Google consistently release media-rich mobile sites that rival the performance of native apps? This article serves as a point-by-point...

  • By
    Designing for Simplicity

    Before we get started, it's worth me spending a brief moment introducing myself to you. My name is Mark (or @integralist if Twitter happens to be your communication tool of choice) and I currently work for BBC News in London England as a principal engineer/tech...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Multiple Backgrounds with CSS

    Anyone that's been in the web development industry for 5+ years knows that there are certain features that we should have had several years ago. One of those features is the HTML5 placeholder; we used JavaScript shims for a decade before placeholder came...

  • By
    Fading Links Using jQuery:  dwFadingLinks

    UPDATE: The jQuery website was down today which caused some issues with my example. I've made everything local and now the example works. Earlier this week, I posted a MooTools script that faded links to and from a color during the mouseover and mouseout events.

Discussion

    Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!