OneNote is an extremely versatile tool, and it's now free for everyone. Whether you use OneNote to take notes in class, stay on top of projects, or make a scrapbook, you'll find something to love about it.

Depending on your use for OneNote, you might be interested in keeping the contents of a notebook secure. Thankfully, OneNote includes the ability to password-protect certain sections of any notebook. Hopefully you're not storing your passwords in OneNote, as password managers are much more secure and equipped for this purpose. For anything else you want to keep sensitive, here's how to restrict access.

Open OneNote on your desktop and open the notebook you want to protect. Right-click on a section and choose Password Protect This Section… to launch the password sidebar. You can click Set Password to choose a new password for the section, or Remove Password to take it off if you've changed your mind.

You'll be required to type the password twice as usual to add it, but be careful here. There is no way to recover your notebook data if you forget this password, so be sure to commit to memory or add it to your password manager. While setting this up, it's a good idea to take review the password options, as well.

Click Password Options… at the bottom of the sidebar to open them. Here you can change the time that a section must be idle for it to lock automatically, or set all sections to lock as soon as you leave them. You can press the shortcut CTRL + ALT + L at any time to immediately lock all password-protected sections.

Looking to dig deeper into OneNote? Check out the little-known features you'll love.

Do you keep sensitive OneNote documents? Let us know if you appreciate using a password on your notebooks!

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