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In Ubuntu I can protect files by hiding them or change the owner and permission. But I am using dual boot (Windows and Ubuntu), so Ubuntu's hidden files and directories are easily visible from Windows.

How can I prevent people from viewing my hidden files in Windows, or how can I make a file hidden for Windows in Ubuntu?

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  • What kind of file-system are you using? ext3/4? Windows can't read those. Meaning your entire U:\(Ubuntu) drive will not me visible!
    – blade19899
    Dec 13, 2013 at 15:47
  • @blade19899 Partition is ntfs. Which is visible by ubuntu and windows both.
    – shantanu
    Dec 14, 2013 at 16:52

4 Answers 4

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To hide files and/or folders in Ubuntu you have two ways:

  1. add a '.' (without quotes, obviously) at the beginning of file's/folder's name
  2. List item if you don't want to rename the file/folder do this: in the same folder as the one in which are saved the files/folders you want to hide, create a new text file, and edit it writing the names of the files/folders you want to hide. Then save it and rename it as ".hidden" (without " too)

To see hidden files press CTRL+H.

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  • 3
    I think he mean to say that the hidden file in ubuntu must be hidden windows too
    – Tachyons
    Feb 19, 2012 at 10:26
  • Thanks for the hidden file method, I was trying to do the opposite of what the OP asked for. To hide Windows System files so that I don't accidentally edit them in Linux. This helped as renaming was not an option.
    – Abhimanyu
    Mar 11, 2021 at 16:59
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In Windows a file is set to hidden by setting attributes, so you can change attributes via Wine command line or DOSBox

wine cmd
attrib +h filename
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  • it does not work
    – ultrajohn
    Jan 29, 2015 at 12:23
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See if you want to hide your files/folder in ubuntu

1.First open the directory containing your files.

2.Make an empty text document named ".hidden"

3.Open this document and then write the name of first file you want to hide go to next line and write second file/folder's name.

4.When you are finished doing description then save the document and after that press "ctrl+h".

5.Your files should be hidden now.

6.Thanx for reading this.

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Use some kind of encryption, that's the only way to 100% secure your files, on any filesystem.

If someone has physical access to your computer, nothing prevents them from taking out the hard disk(s), plugging them into another computer, and reading everything from there.

Even without messing with the hardware, i wouldn't trust microsoft's ridiculous idea of "security" any day of the week. Even with everything set to the most paranoid settings, someone might easily be able to write and install a windows driver/exploit to read your linux partitions.

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