Encrypting & Hiding a DMG

[kinkster]

I didn't put it in the Tutorials section since it isn't related to OSX86. I wrote this guide for other forums, so some of its kind of basic, but its still useful. Here goes:

 

 

 

This will leave you with a hidden DMG that you'll have to un-hide then give your password to access the contents.

 

First you need to make the encypted DMG.

 

1. Open up Disk Utility. This is in the Utilities folder of you Applications.

 

2. Go to File then New then Blank Disk Image.

 

3. Now you've got some things to fill out. Do it like this:

 

Fill it all out like I did. You can save it as whatever you'd like, but to make it more easy don't use spaces in the name(you can use spaces if you aren't going to hide it). You can also make it a different size if you like, depending on how much you think you'll ever need to encrypt. On the image format option, you can pick "sparse disk image", which means it will only be as big as what you put in it and get bigger as you add things. This can save hard drive space but it also means that someone will know approximately how much data you have encrypted. If you set it to a certain size then you can easily say "oh I was just messing around, there's nothing actually in it, and I forgot the password," or "I only have a couple of small things in there."

 

4. Click create and soon it will ask you to enter a password. The longer you password is and the more uppercase, numbers, and punctuation it has the more secure it will be.

 

Turn off the key chain check box.

 

5. Press okay on the password box and then it should be created on you desktop like this:

 

 

Not you all done with the encrypting part. When you try to open it you'll be prompted for your password. When you wan't to close it down again so no one can see what's in it, click on the eject button in finder, or drag it to the trash. Heres the eject button, on the right.

 

 

Making it hidden

 

6. Now open up Terminal which is also in Utilities and type the following(replacing NoSpaces with whatever yours is named).

 

mv ~/Desktop/NoSpaces.dmg ~/Desktop/.NoSpaces.dmg

 

What this code does is add a "." to the front of the name of the file, which makes it invisible. You can do this for any file/folder/application/anything if you know how to alter the path(not very hard to figure out), or you can just put it in your desktop and put in the name of whatever it is your hiding.

 

7. So, if you did that right it should have disappeared. To make it show up again you need to run a script. What this script does is simply make all hidden files visible, which includes file with "."s in front of their names. Here is the file: http://rapidshare.com/files/120690710/ShowAll.zip.html

 

Creds for the script go to kilktrk

 

I would recommend putting it some where not to obvious, but still memorable. And name it something inconspicuous, that sounds like some system file or something.

 

8. To use this application/script just double click it and it will ask you if you want to make hidden files visible.

 

 

Say okay and then it will. The application won't stay open, it just does its thing and then closes down. To make all your hidden files hidden again when your done with them just run the application again.

 

 

So once you've done all that all you have to do to get to your files is:

Run the script.

Open the DMG with your password.

 

 

And to close it down:

Eject the DMG

Run the script again.

 

 

END NOTES:

 

If you don't want to have a possibly telling script you can achieve the same thing with the following code in Console. One to show, one to hide:

 

 

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

killall Finder

 

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE

killall Finder

[kinkster]

I guess nobodies got anything to hide, lol.

[1ker]

lol nice guide kinkster!

But currently i dont have anything to hide

[stroke]

setfile -a V will make it hidden without adding a '.'.