How To Hide Files In a JPG Picture

If your computer is used by multiple users, you probably needed to hide certain files on your computer There are many ways to do this, and one of them is to hide your files in a JPG image.

In fact, you can embed your files in any JPG image, and all users see is just the image itself. There is no sign of your hidden files and people won’t even know that there is something hidden in your JPG photos. However, if someone looks at the size of this image, they might find it suspicious as it will be too large due to the files hidden in it.

You can hide your files in JPG picture on both Windows and Mac.

Use Command Prompt to hide files as JPG (Windows)

If you are a Windows user, you can use the command on the command line to hide the files in the image. This command combines the files you want to hide and the image you want to use in one image file.

When you open this image file, it looks like a regular image without any indication that it has hidden files.

Keep your JPG photo ready on your desktop as you will hide your files in it.

You will need to add the files you want to hide to the ZIP archive. To do this, right-click the files, choose Send To, and select Compressed (Zipped) Folder.

Move the zip file to your desktop.
Use Cortana Search to find and open the Command Prompt.

Enter the following command to make the desktop the current working directory.
cd desktop

Enter the following command to hide files in the JPG image.
copy / b source-image.jpg + your-archive.zip target-image-file. jpg

This is what each part of the command means:

source-image.jpg is an image that you already have on your PC and where you want to hide your files

your-archive.zip is a zip file that contains the files you want to hide.

target-image-file.jpg – This will be the final file containing your image and your ZIP archive.

When you run the command, a new JPG image file will appear on your desktop. It contains the files you wanted to hide in JPG format.

Show hidden files

You don’t have to use the command line to display the files hidden in the JPG photo.

To display the files, right-click the JPG image where your files are hidden, select “Open” with and select the WinRAR archiver.

You can click the “Extract to” button to extract the files from the archive and save them to a folder on your PC.

Another way to display files is to change the JPG image extension. To do this, right-click the photo, select Rename and change the extension to ZIP.

Double click this renamed zip file to extract the hidden files.

Use an application to hide files in JPG (Windows)

If you don’t want to use the command line, there is a GUI application to hide your files in an image on your PC. This is a completely free application and you can use it to both hide and show files.

Download and extract the JPHS Windows application to your computer.
Run Jphswin.exe by double-clicking it.

In the main interface of the application, click the “Open JPEG” button to load the original image.

Navigate to where your image is located and double-click it to add it to the application.
Click Hide on the application menu bar.

You will be prompted for a password to hide your files Enter your password in both fields and click OK.

Select the files you want to hide in your JPG image.
Back at the main interface, click Save jpeg as in the menu bar. to save the file.

Select a folder to save the JPG image with hidden files in it.

Show hidden files

You can use the same JPHS Windows app to display the files.

Open Jphswin.exe.
Click the Open jpeg button on the menu bar.

Select the JPG image where you hid the files.
When the image is loaded into the application, click Search in the menu bar.

Enter the password you used to hide the files and click OK.

Select the folder where you want to save the files.
Right click on the file you just canceled, choose Rename and change the extension to whatever it was before you hid the file. If you don’t, the file won’t open.

Use Terminal to hide files as JPG (Mac)

If you are on Mac, you can use a command in Terminal to hide files in the JPG image. This method works in much the same way as the Windows method.

Make sure you have a JPG photo on your desktop. You can grab it from any website if you don’t already have a place to start.

Start by adding the files you want to hide to the archive. You can do this by right-clicking the files and choosing Compress. This will create a ZIP archive in the same folder as your files.

Copy the ZIP archive to your desktop.
Click Launchpad in the Dock, search for Terminal and open it.

Enter the following command to make the desktop the current working directory.
cd desktop

Use the following command in Terminal to hide files in JPG picture.
cat source.jpg archive.zip> target.jpg

This is what each parameter in the command means:

source.jpg is the image file you already have on your desktop.

archive.zip – it contains the files you want to hide.

target.jpg – This will be the target file containing both your image and hidden files.

To check if your files are actually hidden inside the JPG image, right-click the generated image and choose Get Info. You will see that its size is now larger than before, which confirms that your hidden files are indeed there.

Show hidden files

You will need to use Terminal to extract files from the image file.

Open Terminal on your Mac.

Run the following command in Terminal. Make sure to replace target.jpg with the actual name of the image where your files are hidden.
unzip target.jpg

Use an application to hide files in JPG (Mac OS) image

There is a free Steg application available for Mac users to hide files in JPG image. It has a beautiful graphical user interface to hide and display JPG photo files on your computer.

Download the Steg app and run it on your Mac.
Click on the second icon to open a JPEG image to load a JPG file into the application.

Select the JPG file where you want to hide your files on Mac.
Click the Hide Data option to add files to hide.

Select the files you want to hide inside the JPG image.
You will receive a notification that the data has been successfully hidden. Click OK to continue.