Enhance your image with Disk Utility!
It's a new year folks, and it's time to clean up those hard drives and develop some good habits.
In this article, we're going to organize those millions of files and folders cluttering your poor little Mac and make it happy by using password protected disk images to archive and backup your junk!
Everyone from the newest Mac user to the grizzled veteran has run across a Macintosh Disk Image (DMG). The Disk Image, originated as a method of distributing multiple files in a secure and/or compressed format, has become the primary means of archiving installers for new software.
However, the DMG format has other uses, one of which we discuss in this article. By using the OS X included application 'Disk Utility' (/Applications/Utilities), you can easily accomplish the following tasks:
- Put any number of files into a single file
- Password protect that file
- Compress it to save space
Some good reasons for doing this include:
- Making system backups easier (instead of copying over 20,000 files, you only have one!)
- Making your file system easier to navigate and manage
- Securing private or sensitive documents
In this article, we're going to do a little of each. We're going to archive files collected into a folder into a password protected and compressed disk archive. By doing so, we can then have a nice, neat Documents folder that is easy to copy over to a DVD or backup drive, while still having instant access to our archived files.
Let's begin! (As you progress through the tutorial, you can click any of the thumbnailed images to be shown a larger image.)
Step One: What are we putting in the image?
In this first image, we see a folder that has been created in Finder called 'December 2006'.
The folder is one I created in my Documents folder so that I could keep track of anything I downloaded or created in December. I added it to my sidebar and my Dock so I could always have it handy for dragging a file into it or choosing it in a dialog. The 'December 2006' folder is 483mb.
Remember: You can make images for any type of files in any folder, such as 'Pictures', 'Work Docs', 'Office documents' and so on. You can be as picky as you want!
Step Two: Using Disk Utility
Open Finder and navigate to Applications, then Utilties (if you are on your Desktop or in a Finder window, you can hit Shift-Apple-U and jump immediately to the Utilities folder). Open the application 'Disk Utility' and you will be presented with a window like this one:
Once you have Disk Utility opened, click the 'File' menu, then choose 'New -> Disk Image from Folder...'.
In the resulting dialog, navigate to the folder you wish to make an image of (in this case, "December 2006' in Documents). Make sure that when you click the 'Image' button, that the highlighted folder is the one you want to image (not the one in the dropdown).
After selecting your folder, click 'Image'. Disk Utility will then prompt you for a filename and location for your new image, as well as a couple of options:
In this screenshot, we have two options highlighted:
- 'Image Format' is the type of image to create. We want to compress our image (to make it smaller), so we choose 'Compressed'
- 'Encryption' is optional. This basically means ;do you want a password on this file?'. In this case, we do, so we choose 'AES-128'. This gives our disk image password protection that would require NSA level de-encryption to crack. Your disk image is pretty darned secure!
After setting your options, click 'Save'. You will then have a few moments to contemplate how cool this is as you wait for the disk image to finish being created.
After the process begins, you will be given a dialog box that asks for the password you want to assign to the disk image.
A couple of things to remember:
- If you lose/forget your password, you are out of luck. Seriously.
- If you can't think of anything and want to use the random password generator, be sure to memorize/write down the password it gives you! It will typically be a rather obscure and complicated character set, like %628kj38_(&.
- If you check the box 'Remember password', the disk image password will be stored in your Keychain, meaning that you won't have to type it in if you have recently accessed your Keychain for other reasons. For the sake of this example, we are not going to check the box, which will make OS X prompt us for the password every time we attempt to mount the disk image.
After entering the password, click 'OK'. Your image will then be complete.
Step Three: Using your new disk image
If you navigate to the location you chose to store your image in, you should see something similar to this:
As you can see, this particular image is only slightly smaller than the original folder. If the folder contained more text/documents as opposed to media files, it would have compressed much better. Regardless, we have accomplished our other goals: securing our documents and cleaning up the filesystem.
Note: Do not yet delete the original folder. We want to test a few things first...
Next, open the newly created disk image. You should be prompted for the password you assigned it earlier (notice that you are again given the opportunity to save to the Keychain...you're given this option each time you open the file). After entering the password, choose 'OK'.
The disk image will verify to make sure that the file is not corrupt or otherwise damaged. Depending on the size of the file, it may take a few moments...if you're in a hurry, choose 'Skip'.
Once the image has verified, a new Finder window will open that is focused on your disk image.
Notice that it is represented by a disk icon, not a folder icon. So far as the system is concerned, it is a physical drive that you can read and write. That's right! You can open a file in your image and make changes, then save it inside the image! Cool, huh?
Conclusion
Now that you've verified that your disk image is properly created and works, you can do several things, including:
- Delete the original folder. Simply drag it to the trash and delete it at your leisure.
- Burn a copy of your password protected disk image to a CD or DVD.
- Copy your image over to an external hard drive or network share for back-up or archiving.
If we may, we'd like to make a few suggestions for keeping your documents well organized:
- In your home folder, make a folder called 'Archives'...keep your images stored there for easy access
- Drag that folder to your Finder sidebar for quick access
- Create images for files and folders based on any criteria, including date, kind, size or interest( work, home, fun, important) and so on. This makes it even easier to keep your files organized!
We hope that this tutorial has helped you, and we encourage you to post below if you have any questions, comments or addendum to this article.
Happy imaging!
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- Posted: Jan 8, 2007 by Scott McDaniel
- Tags: apple
- Short URL: http://bit.ly/281gT
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