Simple Windows trick to hide important data inside a text file!

Most computer users have important files stored on their hard drive, such as files containing sensitive information or personal files. In such cases, you may need to hide them so that no one else can access them. Windows offers various ways to hide important files without using programs, as we have previously explored 3 unique and distinctive ways to hide files on Windows, and we have also provided 3 additional ways to hide and protect files in Windows without using programs.

Building on this article, I want to share with you another trick for hiding textual data (not images and videos, etc.) inside a text file. This trick can be very useful if you have sensitive information, like passwords, that you don’t want anyone else to see. So let’s start by learning how to do that.

The idea is very simple, where you create a text file using Notepad via the Command Prompt (CMD) and the content of this file is invisible to the public, only visible to the user who created it. But before we begin, you should consider that this method works on storage drives that operate on the NTFS file system. If the hard drive is operating on the NTFS system, you can follow the steps with us. Otherwise, you will need to convert the file system on the hard drive to NTFS without formatting using storage management tools like MiniTool Partition Wizard. Once you have done that, you can apply the following steps.

First, open the Command Prompt by going to the Start menu or pressing the Windows key + X on your keyboard and selecting Command Prompt from the menu that appears. Paste the following command in this black Command Prompt window:

But I suggest you modify the command before pasting it in the Command Prompt window. You can change ImportantData to any other word as long as there are no spaces between them. This command acts as a password to display the secret content in the file. Once you have edited the command and pasted it in CMD window and pressed Enter to execute the command, a Notepad window will appear along with a pop-up window to confirm creating a new text file, click Yes and make sure of the path in which the text file will be saved. After creating the text file, you can write any content or enter the secret data you do not want anyone to see, then click on the File section and from the drop-down menu select Save to save this content.

Now you can close all windows and ensure that no one can know about this secret content you have written. Even if you go to the saved path where the text file we created was, and which was indicated in the confirmation window when creating the file, you will notice that the text file is empty and does not contain anything, and even its size is 0 kilobytes. You can write any text on it and treat it as a regular text file.