
If you need more extensive protection, you may want to use a third-party zip utility. While the encryption feature is designed to keep files private, it only works with certain editions of the operating system.

Windows Explorer will not work for password-protected ZIP files, as the password must be entered to access the contents. However, you need to use the password protection tool if you’re sending a file to another person. There are many ways to decrypt password protected ZIP files, including using a program called 7-Zip. Once you’ve entered the password, you can then view the contents of the ZIP file. After you’ve double-clicked the file, you must type or input the password in order to access the contents. To see what’s inside, you can use either the integrated or external tools.

Double-clicking the file will display its contents. The easiest way to extract a password protected ZIP file is to double-click the file. Similarly, you can follow the same steps to decrypt a zip file on a Mac.

Enter the password into a text document (respecting upper and lower case) and press ‘OK’ to start the installation. After you’ve extracted these files, the compression tool will warn you that the file is password protected. If you have a ZIP file on your computer, you can use the ZIP compression tool to extract the executable files inside.
