I was messing around with encrypting personal individual files. Now everytime I download an image from the internet it comes with a lock icon on it. I can still use it but I have to right click and disable it. It's very annoying. Any idea on how to return it back to normal?
If you mean built in Windows EFS encryption then I've recreated your problem (which is no help to either of us).
I turned on encryption for the downloads folder (and get the same issue as you). This command should remove it but it doesn't work..
Trying through the GUI I get "An error occurred applying attributes to the file. C:\Users\Hali\Downloads The specified file could not be decrypted"Code:C:\Users\Hali>cipher c:\users\hali\downloads /d Decrypting files in C:\users\adam\ Downloads [ERR] Downloads: The specified file could not be decrypted. 0 file(s) [or directorie(s)] within 1 directorie(s) were decrypted. C:\Users\Hali>
I'll try to fix it but may have to restore back. Oops.
You could try it anyway and see if it works for you.
I know. It lets you turn on encryption on Downloads folder but doesn't let you turn it off again - only for the contents. This must be a bug.
What I did was deleted the C:\Users\<your name>\Downloads folder (copy the contents elsewhere first if you want) and made a new one. The new folder doesn't have the EFS flag set so when you download things you don't get the padlock. That is this box shown below is no longer ticked which is what was causing the problem.
You could try renaming it but I had some problems with this as links would still point to the renamed directory so in the end I deleted it.
The only issue I found with this approach found it is in Quick Access the downloads folder shortcut couldn't be found but it is trivial to repin-it (right click and select pin to quick access...)
I never really used EFS before (I use encrypted bitlocker drives for private things) and after this I don't think I'm going to start now
Hope this works for you anyway.
I deleted the Downloads folder in C/Users/MyComputersName and It didn't work. It doesn't really matter I don't think. The lock doesn't really do anything, it's just annoying to see.I know. It lets you turn on encryption on Downloads folder but doesn't let you turn it off again - only for the contents. This must be a bug.
What I did was deleted the C:\Users\<your name>\Downloads folder (copy the contents elsewhere first if you want) and made a new one. The new folder doesn't have the EFS flag set so when you download things you don't get the padlock. That is this box shown below is no longer ticked which is what was causing the problem.
You could try renaming it but I had some problems with this as links would still point to the renamed directory so in the end I deleted it.
The only issue I found with this approach found it is in Quick Access the downloads folder shortcut couldn't be found but it is trivial to repin-it (right click and select pin to quick access...)
I never really used EFS before (I use encrypted bitlocker drives for private things) and after this I don't think I'm going to start now
Hope this works for you anyway.
What do you mean you deleted it and it doesn't work?
Did you delete it and make a new one?
Does the new one have the "Encrypt contents to secure data" flag?
I know it doesn't matter that much but you could fix it easily if you wanted to.
All you have to do is right click on "Downloads" and delete. Right click again in your user directory and create a new folder called "Downloads". Add it to "Quick Access" and that is it.
Up to you of course.
Un-pin downloads in quick access (by right clicking on it). Then browse to downloads under "This PC" as shown in the picture above and right click to pin it. That is what I did anyway.
Good luck :)
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