How to Protect Photos and Movies on the Canon EOS Rebel T7/2000D

You can protect pictures and movies on your Canon EOS Rebel T7/2000D from accidental erasure by giving them protected status. After you take this step, the camera doesn’t allow you to delete the file from your memory card, whether you press the Erase button or use the Erase Images option on Playback Menu 1.

You can also save time by using the protection feature when you want to keep a handful of pictures but delete the rest. Instead of using the Select and Erase Images option, which requires that you tag each photo you want to delete, protect the handful that you want to preserve. Then use the Erase All Images option to dump the rest — the protected photos are left intact.

Although the Erase functions don’t touch protected pictures or movies, formatting your memory card does erase them.

To protect a photo, use these techniques:

• Protect/unprotect a single photo/movie: The Quick Control screen offers the fastest option. Display the photo in full-frame view. Or in Index view, select the photo by moving the highlight box over it. Then press the Q button and highlight the Protect Images symbol, labeled here. Choose Enable at the bottom of the screen, and a little key symbol appears at the top of the frame, as shown in the figure. Press the Q button again to exit the Quick Control display.

To remove the protected status, follow the same steps but choose Disable on the Quick Control screen.

• Protect/unprotect multiple photos/movies: To apply or remove protected status from more than a couple photos or movies, going through Playback Menu 1 is faster than using the Quick Control screen. From the menu, choose Protect Images, as shown on the left. You then can select from these options, shown on the right here:

• Select Images: Choose this option to protect specific photos or movies. An image appears along with a key icon and the Set label in the upper-left corner of the screen, as shown in the following figure. These symbols remind you that you add/remove protection by pressing the Set button. Use the left/right cross keys to scroll to the picture you want to protect and then press the Set button. Now a key icon appears at the top of the screen, as labeled in the figure, indicating that protection is in place. Keep scrolling through your pictures, pressing Set to add the key to each file you want to protect. To remove protection, press Set to make the key disappear.

• All Images in Folder: When you choose this option (refer to the right screen), you see a list of available folders. Select the one that contains the images you want to protect and then press Set. (Unless you create custom folders, you probably only have one folder on your card.)
• Unprotect All Images in Folder: Use this option to unlock all protected images in the folder you select.
• All Images on Card: After you select this option, choose OK on the confirmation screen and press Set. All photos and movies on the memory card are now locked.
• Unprotect All Images on Card: Select this option to unlock all pictures and movies on the card.

When you finish protecting or unlocking photos, press the Menu button to exit the protection screens.

How to unlock protected files after downloading

When you download protected files to your computer, they show up as read-only files, which means that you can't edit them and then resave them under the original name. Nor can you delete them from your computer.

To remove protection from a file after downloading, use the Windows file browser (Windows File Explorer) or, on a Mac computer, the Finder:

• Windows File Explorer. Track down the file, right-click on it to display a pop-up menu, and choose Properties. In the dialog box that appears, uncheck the Read-only box and then click OK. (Note: Don't confuse Windows File Explorer, which is the file-management tool, with Windows Internet Explorer, which is a web browser.)
• Mac Finder: Click the locked file in the Finder window. Open the File menu and then choose Get Info. At the bottom of the General tab of the Get Info window, look for the Locked check box. Clear that box to remove the file protection.