Leaving confidential records and credentials on your Mac without setting up any security layer to discourage curious eyes is not a particularly good idea. Hider 2 is a user-friendly encryption tool intended to provide an average level of security for your data.
Unlike other, more sophisticated security tools, Hider 2 does not hide its presence or the vaults that store your valuable items. However, all the data is encrypted using the powerful AES-256 algorithm, and the app’s user interface is password protected.
Hider 2 allows you to backup your passkey in the Keychain Access system app, which is great because, if you forget the interface password, there is no alternative solution for recovering the encrypted files. Unfortunately, this comes with a downside: other people using your Mac with the same account will be able to open the Hider 2 vault without your consent.
Encrypt important files and move them to secure vaults
Within Hider 2's main window, you can quickly import the files and folders you want to protect via drag and drop or by using the Finder menu.
Subsequently, the app will encrypt the data, move the files to the vault and securely erase the items from the original location. When you want to access the encrypted data, all these actions are reversed and the files are reverted to their initial site.
Protecting your files translates into more processing time
Both procedures can take some time when dealing with a large amount of data: a 4.95 GB folder containing around 1500 files has been hidden in about 5 minutes. Moreover, since the application had to write a large amount of data to the disk, the computer went unresponsive at times.
The decryption process took only 1 minute longer. Nonetheless, in the case of small files, toggling their visibility has almost instant results.
The test was performed on a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac with 6 GB of RAM, and Hider 2 took up to 50% CPU power and around 100 MB RAM. It is also important to mention that when you are not running encryption or decryption tasks, Hider 2's usage requirements drop considerably.
Keep in mind that the files are protected only when hidden
Worth mentioning is that Hider 2 includes batch processing capabilities, which means that you can queue multiple tasks and the app takes care of them on its own. What's more, before quitting, Hider 2 can automatically hide all visible items to make sure all your data is safe.
The files are encrypted and decrypted each time their visibility status changes, therefore, since you cannot preview their content within the Hider 2 interface, it is advisable to work with smaller folders and incorporate hints about the included data in the name. Hider 2 also provides details about the original file or folder path and size in the Info panel.
Hider 2 allows you to use a single primary vault at a time, but you get to organize your encrypted files into multiple groups. In addition, the utility automatically detects Finder tags and makes them visible within the main window.
Hide your files into vaults even when working with removable disks
The utility can also create vaults on remote disks to help you protect your information when you are on the go (the interface password associated with the local installation will also be used for the remote vaults).
Last but not least, Hider 2 offers you the possibility to create notes and to organize them into categories. This way you can securely store accounts credentials, passwords, and other sensitive information without having to create new text files.
To streamline the access to the encrypted vaults, the app comes with a menu bar item that integrates search capabilities, but cannot run queries on the secure notes.
To workaround this issue, just open the Hider 2 main window and use the search tool included there. For security reasons, neither the Finder nor Spotlight has access to the files stored in the vaults while in encrypted form.
The Good
You get to organize files and folders into categories, you can make use of predefined Finder tags to find specific items, and you can even securely store your own notes.
The app’s interface is password protected, the main window automatically locks when inactive, and you can hide all files or lock the main pane via hotkeys. All these features ensure a reasonable amount of protection while allowing you to access the information whenever you need to.
The Bad
At the same time, Hider 2 cannot hide the vault that stores your protected files or its presence on your Mac, which might raise the unwanted curiosity of other users.