If you want to allow others use your computer but do not want them to open or view the Office Word, PowerPoint, Excel files saved on your computer, you can protect them with a password. Microsoft Office for Windows has the built-in capability to encrypt Office documents. For example, you can password protect Office Word documents or add a password to lock PowerPoint presentation files. You’d expect to be able to find the same functionality on the mobile. Unfortunately currently the file protection feature is missing on both Android and iOS versions. Is there any workaround if we need to hide or encrypt Office Word, PowerPoint, Excel files on iPhone?
Today, we’d like to share with you two solutions you may consider before the native password lock or encryption support is available with Office for mobile.
Lock Office files with a security app on iPhone
Files is the stock file manager app on iPhone and iPad. It is very limited currently. It’s missing many of the great features, privacy protection is one of them. Some third-party file managers, notably the iPhone file manager, allow users to turn on the app password. It can lock out any authorized access to the app. Without this password, no one can browse files saved in the app or even open the app at all. It is just like your phone screen lock pattern or passcode which protects all content on your mobile phone. The app password protects all content saved within the app itself. You can use a password, Touch ID, Face ID to lock files on iPhone.
Once you copied the Office files from other location or apps to the file explorer app, make sure to delete the original copy. And make sure to save the password, password recovery questions & answers of the file explorer app to some where safe. Or use your fingerprint or Face ID to lock them.
Zip Office files with a password on iPhone
Sometimes however you may need to transfer, send or share the Office files but want to secure the file with a password. In this case, compress the Word, Excel or PowerPoint documents and encrypt them with a password is probably the best solution. Firstly you can reduce the file to smaller size for faster transfer; secondly the file gets encrypted so you do not need to worry about the confidential information gets into the wrong hands.
We recommend FileMaster, another third-party file manager for iOS which can help us zip and unzip files on iPhone. You can follow this guide to zip files with password on iPhone using this free app.
