How to password protect/restrict only certain folder on shared network

I want to be able to access certain folders for my convenience/work-related things. However, I also want some of them to remain locked or inaccessible to other users on the network. Is this possible?

I had a ton of trouble setting up a Shared Network in the first place, so I'm apprehensive about changing too much on my own.

Hi - thanks for the quick reply. Unfortunately, I don't have the options in that post with my version of Windows 10. I went ahead and created a separate User Account. I gave it permission to only certain folders. I thought I had it figured out finally, but nope.

All folders seem to work except one. I checked which groups it's shared with and it's missing 'Administrators'. All of the other folders have it. No idea how to add it back or if this is even the issue.

I want to be able to access all of these folders on other personal devices. But I want a few of them to be locked/password protected.

I locked the ones I wanted and kept the other ones accessible. When I go to my other devices, for some reason, every folder works as intended except one. When I click it, it wants authentication. However, the authentication that should work does not. I have to put in the newly created Username/Password for it to work (the Username that I DON'T want to have access to the folder... strangely.)

Sorry if this is confusing. I've been at this for hours with no luck. I appreciate any further help greatly.

This is a topic that can potentially become complex because Windows has the ability to get EXTREMELY granular with network access.

I'm going to apologize in advance, because this may possibly be way more than you want to know, but I think that it's important that you at least have a basic idea of what is possible and have an idea of where to look if you want to implement something like this. Just knowing what is possible is sometimes half the battle. Also, apologies if some of what is contained in previously provided links is duplicated here.

Here are some of the basics:

First, you have the share level permissions. When you share a folder you can select what users have access to that share and whether they will have read-only rights or whether they will be able to both read and write to that share (also known as full access). You can give different levels of access to different users. For example, you might allow Bob to have read only access while Alice gets full access.

If you do nothing more than create the share, then those rights that you give to the users will apply to all files and subfolders within that share.

For many people, that will be all that they need. However, now we have the next topic: NTFS File permissions. Before I cover more detail let's think of it like this:

The share permissions described above give you access to the share. But the NTFS file permissions can be used to further refine what you can do once you connect to that share. For example, suppose that within that share you have a folder called "Public Info" and another one called "Top Secret". Alice connects to the share that contains these folders with full access. Normally, Alice would then have full access to both of these subfolders. However, by using NTFS permissions, you could make it so that Alice has NO access to the "Top Secret" subfolder. She won't even see that a folder by that name exists! The share level permissions will still allow her access to "Public Info" but the NTFS file permissions will deny access to "Top Secret". The same holds true for individual files. You can limit the access that users have to individual files, even within the same folder. That's powerfull!

Let me put this one more way: The share permissions serve as a starting point to give either read access or full access. Using NTFS file permissions you can further restrict access to files and / or folders within that share. Note that the NTFS file permissions can only further restrict access. For example, if you give read only access at the share level, the NTFS file permissions cannot grant write access, it can only restrict the user further than what was imposed at the share level.

I know that this a lot! As I noted, this can get complex. But, if this topic interests you, then below is a tutorial that can get you started:

Change Permissions of Objects for Users and Groups in Windows 10

Really appreciate all of the help. I'm trying here, but I feel like I'm too dumb for this lol.

Basically, I'm testing access on multiple computers/tablets. I've made two User Accounts. (My default admin account on the PC that has the network drive/is sharing -- and another which I want to have limited access to folders on the network). I've managed to make some folders inaccessible on the other PC/User Account. (When trying to open them, it says 'You do not have permission to access. Contact your network administrator) or something to that effect. I want these files to remain accessible on other devices.

For example, say my main computer/user is Bob. I want full access, and I want to be able to sign Bob into other devices with full access. My other user is Janet. I want her to be able to access all of the same folders as Bob except for a few. So far, I've managed to revoke access to 2/3 folders for Janet.

My problem is: when I try to revoke sharing on the third folder, I also seem to lose access to that Folder with Bob - the folder is still there, but the contents are missing. When Bob tries to enter the folder, it asks for Janet's login... and that login doesn't work on this particular folder.

Again, sorry for all of the confusion/questions. I'm determined but limited in my capabilities with navigating this kind of stuff.

- - - Updated - - -

Well, I ended up fixing the problem by making a new folder and transferring all of the old items out of the problem folder. Not sure which setting was different, but this seems to have worked! Thanks for all the help.