Data Privacy – In The Digital https://inthedigital.co.uk Web Design, Development and Digital Marketing Wed, 06 Aug 2025 10:55:59 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://i0.wp.com/inthedigital.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/cropped-in-the-digital-icon-padded.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Data Privacy – In The Digital https://inthedigital.co.uk 32 32 153467252 How to password protect an external drive for Macs https://inthedigital.co.uk/how-to-password-protect-an-external-drive-for-macs/ Fri, 15 Dec 2023 12:27:50 +0000 https://inthedigital.co.uk/?p=2683 Protect your external drives in 7 simples steps. Follow this guide to easily protect external drives for Macs and MacBooks in only a few minutes.]]>

Here are the steps we take to protect an external hard drive:

  1. Open Disk Utilities
  2. Select the drive to protect
  3. Select Erase
  4. Rename the drive
  5. Provide a secure password and a useful hint
  6. Erase and recreate the password protected drive
  7. Enjoy protect external assets

1. Open Disk Utilities

How to password protect an external drive for Macs. In The Digital. utilities folder icon
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How to password protect an external drive for Macs. In The Digital. disk util icon

2. Select the drive to protect

How to password protect an external drive for Macs. In The Digital. select drive from disk utilities

3. Select ‘Erase’

Renaming external drive on a Mac

4. Rename the drive

Select Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)

5. Provide a secure password and a useful hint

set complex auto-generate password for external drive

6. Erase and recreate the password protected drive

Erasing and recreating password protected drive for Macs

7. Enjoy protect external assets

Drive created and password protected for use on Macs

Disk was: Elements
Disk now: TimeMachine MacBook Pro

]]> 2683 How to disable directory views with a blank file or a single line of code https://inthedigital.co.uk/how-to-disable-directory-views-with-a-block-file-or-one-line-of-code/ Wed, 08 Aug 2018 09:45:44 +0000 https://inthedigital.co.uk/?p=500 By default the directories (folders) of your website and other applications may be publicly viewable for all to browse. This is a potential security risk, but thankfully one that can be reduced very easily.

Here are two simple options to reduce this risk by preventing the directories from showing their content as browsable lists:

  • Option 1: index.html
  • Option 2: .htaccess

index.html

One way is to add a blank index.html file to each directory that you do not want prying eyes to browse the contents of.

Though this is a perfectly fine approach, one that’s adopted by many, but it does mean you need to put an index.html file in each and every directory to want to prevent from being browsable.

.htaccess

Another, much quicker way to, is to place a single line of code in the .htaccess file of website’s root directory. This approach assumes your server is using Apache, if you’re an nginx user, feel free to get in touch for more advice (and congrats on a good choice).

If you have access, open the .htaccess file at the root of the directories you want to target and enter this following line after any existing content:

Options -Indexes

If the directory doesn’t have a .htaccess file, then just create one (don’t forget the preceding . to the filename) and add the code.

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