Hider 2: Encrypt and Hide App Reviews

Extremely useful, while i was using a different private photos app i relized the files could still be found in folders deep in the Finder. This however completely hides folders from the finder which is may more useful. Thanks!

bleeding brilliant! Works a charm! It’s Magic!

It just remove the original file, and rewrite a new file in another place. If you hide files with this software too often, your SSD will be killed!

It crashes and and all my private files have gone! How can i reach my files now!!!!

I have been using Hider since Ver 1 and 2.2 got better. I really enjoy its new UI and ease of use. Last week I had an issue with my Vault and the whole issue was resolved with exchanging 3 e-mails. Very satisfied with both the product and the support.

Guys, you really did a good job… I hided more than 4GB of documents with your jewel of software and then, since one week, every time I tried to unhide my docs I ALWAYS got this error: "The file was either encrypted with an unknown key or got into your vault by mistake.” I didn’t change anything on my mac, nor installed software or dropped things into the vault by mistake… So, now, what shall I do???

Not sure if this is just a glitch/bug or a feature that needs to be added but...... When the Hider 2 app locks/closes after the users preset idle time, any folders or files that were unlocked at that time remain open, unlocked and 100% accessible. This is a GIANT flaw in my opinion and kind of defetes the whole point of that app. I’ve been using the app for a while now and other then that it’s been isssue free and I like it.

I made the mistake of trusting MacPaw when downloading this app. It erased my entire external drive, and support seems to consist of one person (the same ones you’ll see on their forums and twitter) responding with canned responses. They will not honor a return for their flawed app either. Poor customer service. They are unable to recover lost data for their flawed program; see their help forums if you want to see the troubles with this app. Do NOT download this app, learn from my mistake!

Major data loss. If you use this app. you run a very serious risk of losing your data as I did. Horrible app.!!! Beware!!!

very functional app, beautiful design and nice hiding skills …….

I just wanted to hide 10 GB file and takes more than 5 hour have to option just hide thats all. without encrypt

Simple & convenient - hides files securely out of sight until needed; bit pricey and slow, considering I need to unhide my folders each time I want to save to the encrypted folders, then re-hide before ejecting hard drives.

Once again the folks at MacPaw have delivered an amazing product. Hider does what it says efficiently and with much less fuss than Firevault, or encrypted disk images. The beauty is that with Hider, your files are doublechecked before being encrypted. If disk corruption were ever to occur, it wouldn’t ruin all your data like a .dmg file would. Brilliantly done and a pleasure to use.

It’s a great idea and works well for photos that I have, but TWICE now Hider has deleted an entire folder of Word documents that I had, and they’re just gone, not in the trashbin or anything. That’s totally unacceptable.

I was hoping for the ability to set up multiple vaults with different passwords but this application does not appear to have the ability. It’s one vault or nothing.

Somewhat pricey but effective. Documents are no problem to hide. Photos are a different matter. Documents and photos are not moved into the safe at all. They remain wherever they are on the computer; Hider2 simply hides them with an encryption code. This works perfectly with documents. It does not hide any photo stored in iPhoto. The photo must be copied out of iPhoto, put it in a file or on the desktop then it can be hidden with this app. The original photo must be moved to iPhoto trash and erased. When Hider2 is opened, anything in it can be shown or hidden wherever the files are stored. I expected Hider2 to be a large private file. Not so, the documents are spread throughout the computer so I created special Hider files so I could more easily find the hidden documents. The app has a nice user interface with a dial on a “safe” that moves as you type in a password—though the moving dial is meaningless, it’ a fun feature. The app rates password strength as it is typed in. Easy to create and name file “drawers” within the safe though they cannot be renamed after using them. Overall, I’m pleased with the program.

I’m highly satisfied with my purchase here. I was looking for something to keep medical, tax, and personal records (documents with my social) encrypted and yet easily accessible. MacPaw’s implementation is spot on. SO dang easy to use and from what I can tell, secure. I’ve even changed computers and was able to port my secure files to my new computer seemlessly. Something I don’t particularly like is that all my data is kept in their proprietary format (.hvault). Not the worst thing in the world…but I would prefer if they used the sparsebundle which is organic to OS X. Additionally, I wish their website had more information about the software. I had to email the developer a few times with specific questions. They were quick to answer…however I feel like a majority of what I was asking should have been readily available. Questions like “Where is my data actually being kept on the file system?” and “Contrary to the name, it’s not just ‘hiding’ the files, RIGHT? It’s actually moving and encrypting them?” We are, after all, talking about people’s personal data so they should have quite a few questions about the way it’s being moved, stored, and accessed. Ultimately I really like this software and the improvements they’ve made to it. Fantastic implementation and customer service.

Recent update did something, on launch I try to enter my password and once I too the app crashes everytime, even after a computer restart. No access at all to files now.

I’ve never written a review before but felt thiswas important because of the data loss. Loved this app when I first got it and was very happy with it. It worked fine for awhile, then it started losing files. When the latest upgrade installed, automatically, then I couldn’t access anything! Got another work around from Mcpaw and was able to access some files but now it appears to corrupt pdf’s. When I try to open them I get an Acrobat error message that says: “Acrobat could not open (file name) it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been damaged (for example, it was sent as an email attachment and wasnt correctly decoded).” The pdf’s were fine when I put them in Hider and didn’t work when I took them out. I really do wish this program worked, it was great when it did, but I’ve lost all confidence that if I put an improtant document in I wont lose it.

The preferences for this app are automatically set to delete the files it transfers over, which I would never have selected. I would have double checked to make sure the files were transferred properly before ever allowing them to be deleted. Unfortunately the transfer did not occur correctly and the files did not transfer into the app at all, but the app went and deleted the external files anyway, so I lost both sets of files and have no way of retrieving them. I would never recommend this app to anyone.