How to unhide a folder hidden with Folder Guard

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If you've used Folder Guard to lock a folder with a password, it's obvious how to unprotect such a folder: just double-click on the folder's icon, enter your password, and the folder would be unlocked. However, what if you have set up the folder to be hidden altogether? In such a case, when you browse your computer, you would not see the folder in the Explorer windows, and there would be no icon to double-click on! So, how to unlock the folder if it's invisible?

One solution that's available right out of the box is the Toggle Protection command that's added to the Windows Start - All Programs - Folder Guard menu when you install Folder Guard. When you use this command and enter the Master password, it turns off the protection of all folders that's you've protected with Folder Guard. In particular, it unhides any hidden folders, as well. You can also set up a hot key or enable the Folder Guard taskbar icon to give yourself a quick access to this command. However, what if you don't want to turn off the protection completely, and only want to unhide just one particular folder, while keeping the other folders protected? Well, it's quite easy to achieve such an effect with Folder Guard, too.

The solution is simple: all you need to do is create a shortcut to the file FGKey.exe that would run this program with the command line switch /UNLOCK with the path to the hidden folder. When FGKey.exe is started this way, it prompts for the unlocking password that you've set up for that specific folder (which may be different from the Master password), and, if the password is correct, it unlocks (and unhides) the folder.

Let's show an example. Suppose you've created a folder named Hidden Folder in the root folder on the C: drive. In such a case, the path to the folder is "C:\Hidden Folder" (including the double-quotes, because the path contains spaces). Now, if you have not done so already, run Folder Guard, locate this folder in its window, and use the Lock with password command to, well, lock it with a password. Don't forget to assign the hidden attribute to the folder, too, to make it hidden. Enable the protection and verify it's working: the folder should disappear from the Windows Explorer view.

Now, let's create a shortcut to unhide the hidden folder. Right-click on an empty space of your Desktop, choose New - Shortcut from the menu, and enter the following command as the target for the shortcut:

If you use Windows 32-bit:

"C:\Program Files\Folder Guard\FGKey.exe" /UNLOCK:"C:\Hidden Folder"

If you use Windows 64-bit:

"C:\Program Files\Folder Guard\FGKey64.exe" /UNLOCK:"C:\Hidden Folder"

Here is how the Create Shortcut screen should look in the 32-bit case:

Finish creating the shortcut, (you can choose a suitable name for it, such as Unhide my folder, or similar). Now try it: double-click on the shortcut, and you should see a prompt to enter the password:

Enter the password for the folder (remember, it may not be the same as the Master Password) , and you should see the Hidden Folder to appear back in Windows Explorer! Now you can open the hidden folder and use the files it contains, as usual.

How to hide the hidden folder back? The easiest way is to use the Toggle Protection command we've discussed above, and choose the Lock all folders option:

However, if you have other unlocked folders, this command would lock them, as well. If that's not what you want, you could create another shortcut to run FGKey.exe, but this time with the /LOCK option in its command line. Such a command would lock only one specific folder that you provide for this option, without affecting other protected folders. See the Folder Guard User's Guide for the details about this and other options that you can use with FGKey.exe.

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