How To Password Protect Your Notes In OneNote 2016

A Few Notes on OneNote Section Passwords

You can only add passwords to sections in notebooks, and not to the whole notebooks. And protected sections cannot be unlocked in OneNote for Windows 10, but you must use OneNote 2016 to add a password to an unprotected section.

Microsoft OneNote makes use of encryption to secure password-protected sections in a note. If you forget your password for a section, you would lose access to the notes in that section. Ensure that you sellect a very strong password that you would not forget, and remember that passwords in OneNote are also case-sensitive.

Password-protected sections aree not included in notebook searches. And tags on OneNote notes in a protected section are not included in tag summaries of notes when searching for tags. So before carrying out searches for text or tags, unlock the sections that you want to include in your search.

Password Protect a Section in a OneNote Notebook

To password protect a section, open up the notebook that has the section you want to protect.

Then, right-click on the section tab and clock on Password Protect this Section. When you right-click on any section tab, that particular section would automatically become the active section if it was not.

In the Password Protection pane;  om the right, tap on "Set Password".

On the Password Protection dialog box that comes up, type the password that you want into the Enter Password box Then, click OK.

Again, theree are no way to recover a password for a protected section and this means you will lose access to all the notes in that particular section. Make sure you create a strong password that you can remember.

Lock Password-Protected Sections in OneNote

Applying a password to a section does not immediately lock the section. By default, password protected sections are locked after five minutes of doing that. 

To lock a section that you protected with a password, open up the Password Protection panel for that section and click on Lock All. This locks all the password protected sections, that are currently unlocked, . You cannot just lock only one section at a time. 

Unlock a Protected Section in a OneNote Notebook

Locked sections shows a message saying the section is password protected. To unlock the section, you would have to click on the section page or press Enter.

On the Protected Section dialog box, enter your password and click OK.

All the notes in that protected section would become accessible.

Change a Protected Section’s Password in OneNote

To continue to keep your notes very secure, you should change your password regularly.

To change the password on a section, open the Password Protection pane for that section and click on the Change Password option.

On the Change Password dialog box, enter in the current password into the Old Password box.

Then, type the new password in the Enter New Password box. Click OK.

 

Remove a Protected Section’s Password in OneNote

If you no longer need to protect a particular section, you can remove the password.

To do that, open up the section that you want to unprotect and then open the Password Protection pane for that section.

Unlock the section, if needed. Then, click on Remove Password.

On the Remove Password dialog box, type the current password, and then click OK.

Access Protected Notes in OneNote on Mobile Devices

OneNote syncs all your sections, notebooks, pages to all your devices. And you can unlock and lock protected sections and access your private data on any device that it is on.