Week of Evil: How to Hide Porn on Mac

Welcome to Evil Week , our annual dive into all the slightly sketchy life hacks that we usually refrain from recommending. Want to snag free drinks, play challenging mind games, or launder some money? We have all the information we need to successfully engage in questionable behavior.

If a device has access to the Internet, chances are someone is using it to watch porn. And if they’re watching porn on a device, there’s a good chance they’ll try to keep it a secret, especially if they’re sharing the device with others. But while most people use their web browser’s incognito mode and history removal tools to hide the evidence, some choose to download and save porn on their computers, and keeping those files secret takes a lot more effort.

We’ve already covered how to hide porn on a Windows PC , but Mac users download porn too, so we’re here to help Apple fans keep their digital porn stash a secret. Hiding porn is no different than hiding other files on a Mac, but given the sensitivity of the content, you’ll need to do more than just put them in a random, unsecured folder.

While the best option is to offload the files to external storage, such as a USB drive, cloud drive, or even a writable disc, so they don’t reside on your Mac at all, there are strategies for storing these files on your Mac’s hard drive. ride without being, uh, exposed.

Step 1: Secure your Mac with a user account and password

This is an important step whether you share your device with others or are the only user. (Note: You can skip this step if you already have a Mac account or if you don’t have the necessary administrator rights to add/edit users on your Mac.)

1. Click the Apple icon and choose System Preferences > Users & Groups > Add Account.
2. Enter your Mac password if prompted.
3. Follow the onscreen instructions to create a new account and password.

By setting up your Mac’s user account and password, you can now quickly sign out and lock your Mac by simply pressing Shift + Command + Q. The shortcut comes in handy when you step away from your Mac and want to prevent others from snooping on your personal files.

Step 2: Hide the files (and rename them)

A user account and password can protect others from your Mac (or your personal files if it’s a shared device), but they don’t actually hide files stored on the device, and anyone with access to your Mac user account will can dig around and find everything that has been preserved. Luckily, MacOS makes hiding files and folders quick and easy.

If your devices are running macOS Ventura or later, you can quickly hide files using the keyboard shortcut:

1. Click the file (or click and drag, or Shift-click to select multiple items), and then press Command + Shift + period “”. to make them hidden.
2. You can open hidden files at any time by pressing Command + Shift + Period again.

Another easy way to hide files in MacOS is to add a period to the beginning of the file name.

1. Control-click the file or folder, then choose Rename.
2. Add a period “.” to the beginning of the file name, then press Enter to save your changes.
3. The file should now be hidden. Press Command + Shift + Period to show/hide hidden files.

While hiding a file on your Mac is easy, don’t rely on it as your only means of protection, as someone could use Command + Shift + Period to reveal whatever you were trying to hide. You can reduce this likelihood by renaming the files you’re trying to hide using boring or random names, and then putting them all in a new hidden folder that also has a modest name, like “mac_user_data1” or something like that.

Step 3: Store porn in an encrypted folder.

Once all your porn is renamed, hidden, and placed in one folder, you can encrypt the folder and lock it with a password.

This may seem unnecessary, but it is the best way to protect yourself from prying eyes. Even if someone notices that you are storing something secret in a hidden folder, they will not be able to open it without the password.

You can do this using the built-in macOS Disc Utility program or third-party applications such as 7-Zip. Here’s how it works with Disk Utility:

1. Open the tool under Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.
2. Once open, go to File > New Image > Image from Folder.
3. Select the folder you want to encrypt and click Select.
4. From the pop-up menu, select “Read/Write” for the image format (this will allow you to add/remove files from the folder in the future).
5. From the Encryption drop-down list, select 128-bit AES or 256-bit AES . Both work fine, although 128-bit AES is faster and better suited for our purposes, but 256-bit AES is more secure.
6. Create a password for the folder. Make sure it’s a strong password, but be sure to memorize it or write it down in a safe place. You won’t be able to unlock the folder if you lose it.
7. If you are happy with the folder settings, select “Save” and wait for the process to complete.

Step 4: Hide your porn folder in a secret directory.

Since your porn is stored in an encrypted, password-protected folder with an inconspicuous name, you can now hide it using the shortcuts mentioned above. You can hide the folder anywhere—even on your desktop if you’re brazen or have a hide-in-plain-sight philosophy—but the best option is to hide it in a secret library folder on your Mac.

1. Open the Finder menu and choose Go > Got to Folder.
2. Type ~/Library in the file path and click Go to open the secret library folder.
3. Drag the porn folder into your Library folder, then hide it using the keyboard shortcut Command+Shift+dot. label.

Extra bonus method: Encrypt your entire hard drive.

Following all the previous steps should be enough to ensure that your porn stash is safely stored in your Mac’s files.

However, there is one final step you can take to truly lock down your data: you can lock down your entire hard drive using MacOS’s FileVault or third-party apps like Encrypto, Folder Lock, or VeraCrypt. This will encrypt your Mac hard drive and require a recovery key to unlock and access your files. This is a last resort measure that affects everyone who uses your Mac, so it may not be viable in all cases, but it’s worth considering for those who want the best security possible.