Onedrive Vault feature to encrypt files in Windows 10

The latest version of Microsoft OneDrive brought a rather useful feature called Personal Vault. You can find this feature by hitting the OneDrive icon near the clock on the taskbar and it’s a great way to save your personal files so that no one else can access them. The Personal Vault then creates an encrypted folder, where uploaded files can only be viewed and used if you confirm access to your OneDrive (Microsoft) account via two-factor authentication. The Personal Vault is available to all Onedrive users, free of charge, from PC, smartphone and also via website.
Activate the Personal Vault it is very easy from the Onedrive settings and simply requires you to have activated, on your Microsoft account, the two-factor authentication, that is, the one that requires, in addition to the password, a variable code that can be received via SMS, via Email or generated via a dedicated application.
Once the Onedrive secure folder has been accessed, it becomes unavailable and blocked after 20 minutes of inactivity, forcing the user to log in again. Also, if you prefer to access the Personal Vault via the website, your browser will never cache the page.

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How the Personal Vault in Onedrive works

From within the Windows 10 operating system, with Onedrive active, open File Explorer and then open the Onedrive folder (or search for OneDrive from the start menu to open the folder that synchronizes files on the cloud). Among the folders inside Onedrive, you will find a link called Personal Vault which, if clicked, allows you to configure the protection function. As you progress through the wizard, you will need to confirm your identity using email or phone number verification options.
When the verification is complete, the Onedrive Personal Vault folder will open automatically and the files to keep protected and safe with encryption. Even on a shared PC where you use the same Microsoft account, you will always need to confirm your identity by phone or email to access your personal vault files, so there will be no risk (unless you share the email specified in the two-factor verification).
If you want to configure two-factor authentication for your Microsoft account and Onedrive, you can open the account management page at this address https://account.microsoft.com/security/ and then press, at the top, on Two-step verification.

To lock the Vault folder you can remain inactive on it for 20 minutes (in the meantime Onedrive will send notifications to warn that if not used it will be closed), or press the Onedrive icon on the desktop to open the control box and press the key to lock the Personal Vault .
Using the free version of OneDrive, Personal Vault allows users to archive only up to three rows inside. A Microsoft 365 account is required to remove this limit, although there is a trick to uploading multiple files to the Vault without paying anything: uploading into it file zip. Basically, you can create a zip file with all the files you want inside and then upload it to the Vault to make it count as one.
Also note that files stored in the Personal Vault cannot be shared with anyone.
Technically, the Personal Vault stores and encrypts files using Microsoft’s Bitlocker-encrypt technology and also works on all versions of Windows 10, including Home, which has no Bitlocker support.

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