How to Find and List All Your EFS Encrypted Files in Windows 10
The Encrypting File System (EFS) is the built-in encryption tool in Windows used to encrypt files and folders on NTFS drives to protect them from unwanted access. EFS enables transparent encryption and decryption of files for your user account by using advanced, standard cryptographic algorithms. Any individual or app that doesn't possess the appropriate file encryption key cannot open any encrypted files and folders. Encryption is the strongest protection that Windows provides to help you keep your individual files and folders secure.
When you encrypt a file or folder with EFS in Windows 10, its icon will have a lock overlay at the top right corner to indicate that it's an EFS encrypted file or folder.
Sometimes you may lose track of all your encrypted files and need to create a list of them to find them all again.
This tutorial will show you how to create a list of all EFS encrypted files that belong to the current user on all NTFS local drives in Windows 10.
Contents
- Option One: To Find All Your Encrypted Files on Local Drives and Output List in Command Prompt
- Option Two: To Find All Your Encrypted Files on Local Drives and Output List to Text File
1 Open a command prompt.
2 Copy and paste thecipher /u /n /h
command into the command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
3 Windows will now search all NTFS local drives for all encrypted files that belong to the current user, and will output a list of them in the command prompt.
1 Open a command prompt.
2 Copy and paste the command below into the command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
3 Windows will now search all NTFS local drives for all encrypted files that belong to the current user, and will output a list of them to the MyEncryptedFiles.txt file created on your desktop.
It will be finished searching when you see the prompt again.
That's it,
Shawn
Related Tutorials
- How to Enable or Disable NTFS File Encryption in Windows
- How to Encrypt Files and Folders with Encrypting File System (EFS) in Windows 10
- How to Decrypt Files and Folders Encrypted with EFS in Windows 10
- How to Back Up Your EFS File Encryption Certificate and Key in Windows 10
- How to Import Your EFS File Encryption Certificate and Key in Windows 10
- How to Change or Remove Lock Icon on Encrypted Files and Folders in Windows 10
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- Turn On or Off Show Encrypted or Compressed NTFS files in Color in Windows 10
- How to Enable or Disable Automatically Encrypt Files Moved to EFS Encrypted Folders in Windows