The process of hiding files or any data by storing it inside an image or video or an audio file is called Steganography. This is a very efficient way of protecting crucial personal information from others while sharing it online or storing it on your computer.
There are many software available that you can download and hide your files inside images but today we will learn how to do it without using any software.
Even though the steps below look complicated, they are very easy to follow. We are going to use CMD(command prompt) to hide the files inside an image and this guide is for Windows operating system.
I think this is one of the best ways to protect your personal files and folders from intruders or annoying guest users or maybe your friends who use your laptop/computer more than their own laptops.
Let's start hiding!
How to Hide Files inside Images
1. Select a file/folder that you want to hide. Using the WinRAR software compress the file/folder to .zip or .rar format. And also choose an image in which you want to embed/put this .zip or .rar file.
2. For ease, move the .zip/.rar file and the image on the desktop.
3. To open the Command prompt window, press Windows key + R and type cmd and hit enter. Run the command cd Desktop to move to the desktop. Similarly, if your files are located in some other folder use the cd command to move to that directory.
4. Once you are in the directory where the .zip/.rar file is present and the image, run the following command:
copy /b c.png+Woking.rar protected.png
This command hides your file Working.rar inside a new image protected.png. Make sure to replace c.png with your image name and Woking.rar with your file name.
5. If your files are successfully copied then you will see the message: 1files(s) copied.
6. To see your files that are protected in the image(protected.png), open the image with WinRAR software. Now you can extract them if you want.
While using the command mentioned in point 4, make sure your file and image names are correct. If you will provide wrong names, then the command will return the following message 1 file(s) copied but when you will try to open the protected file with Winrar you will get an error.
This process is one of the best ways to hide your data because even if you open the protected image it opens as an image so that no one can find that you have saved some data in that image. One can find the data in protected image only if they open it with Winrar software.
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