How to Password Protect a Zip File on Mac

Today, I had a “Today I Learned” moment — I learned how to password protect a zip file on Mac using Terminal.

Password protecting an Excel sheet or a zip file on Windows is straightforward, but on Mac? Not so much. Fortunately, Mac’s built-in Terminal makes it simple with just a single command.

Steps

Step 1: Open Terminal

Open Terminal and navigate to the directory where the file you want to zip is located.

cd /path/to/your/file

Step 2: Run the Zip Command

Run the following command to create a password-protected zip file:

zip -e [name-of-new-zip-file].zip [original-file-name]

Example:

zip -e zipfilename.zip yourfilename.xlsx

Step 3: Set the Password

Press Enter. Terminal will prompt you to set and verify a password for the zip file.

Enter password:
Verify password:

Note: Once the password is set and verified, the password-protected zip file will be created in the same directory as the original file.