» Office » How to Encrypt/Password Protect an Email Attachment in Outlook or Gmail
To protect email messages from prying eyes, it is so important to set up a password for your email messages and attachments. Generally, you can encrypt the file before attaching it to email using 7-Zip/WinRAR or Office built-in encryption feature. If you are composing an email in Outlook or Gmail, you can also secure the entire email including attachments with encryption option or confidential mode. Now, let's learn about how to password protect an email attachment in Outlook or Gmail.
7-Zip is a versatile tool that can not only help you compress/extract file, but also allow you to encrypt file by adding a password. With 7-Zip, you are able to compress and encrypt file before attaching it to email to securely and easily send it. Follow the steps on how to password protect an email attachment with 7-Zip.
Step 1: Right-click email attachment and choose 7-Zip > Add to archive
Step 2: Choose zip as archive format and enter a password to encrypt the file you want to attach to email. Finally click OK and you can successfully password protect email attachment with 7-Zip.
Step 3: Once encrypted, the receiver will be required to enter a password to extract and check the email attachment.
Microsoft Outlook supports email encryption, which enables you to secure send sensitive information via email. It is really easy and quick for you to encrypt email including attachments in Outlook. Just follow these steps.
Step 1: In Outlook, click New Email to compose your new email and add the attachment. Then click Option tab on the toolbar and choose Encrypt-Only.
Step 2: When it shows that the message is encrypted, you can send the email to your receiver.
The email including any attachments will stay encrypted in transit and recipient’s box. To read the contents of the email, the recipient need to verify the credentials.
Gmail is a Google mail that supports various features for you to secure your email and attachment from copying, downloading, forwarding, or printing. If you are using Gmail, you can easily protect your email attachment with confidential mode.
Step 1: In Gmail, click Compose to write your email and click Lock icon to enable confidential mode.
Step 2: Set a expiration data for your email such as a week and choose SMS passcode option. Then click Save.
Note: When an email is expired, it will disappear from the recipient's inbox or any folder that stores it on the recipient's end.
Step 3: Enter phone numbers that can receive SMS passcode to verify the recipient’s identity.
To view the email, the receiver need to verify identity using the passcode sent to the specified phone number.
The document file can be one of the most popular attachments added to email. If your email attachment is a document file, you can encrypt document file with built-in encryption feature offered by Microsoft Word. Here come the steps to password protect email attachment with built-in feature of Microsoft Office.
Step 1: In Microsoft Word, click Info and expend Protect Document.
Step 2: Choose Encrypt with Password option.
Step 3: Enter a password and click OK to encrypt the document. Then you can add the encrypted file as the attachment to your email.
