Lock a client folder automatically when you finish work

The job, in plain words

• • The files: each client has a folder on your Windows PC, with their books, payroll, statements and the papers they sent you.
• • The worry: the folders sit there readable all night, and someone else may use this PC after you: a new junior, an articled assistant, someone at home.
• • The routine: when you stop, save what is open, lock the client folder and lock the PC, every working day, without having to remember.
• • The morning: open the folder again in one step, with a password only you know.

The free way first: what Windows already does

Start with what you already have. Each fact below is from Microsoft's own pages, linked under each card. Checked on 24 October 2026.

What Windows Home lacks

On Windows Home there is no EFS and no BitLocker. If the PC qualifies, device encryption still protects the whole drive, but none of the options above encrypts a single folder on Home.

If you are on Pro and your worry is a lost or stolen laptop, BitLocker plus Windows key+L every time you stand up is free, and it may be all you need. What Windows does not give you is the routine: one client folder turned into a locked file at the same time every evening, the PC locked after it, and nothing to remember. That is the part Seqtrix does.

The Seqtrix way: the Clock out template

Seqtrix is a Windows app where you put steps in a sequence and fire it from a schedule, a hotkey or a click. Its Security Lock step encrypts a folder with AES-256-GCM using a password you set on the step: the folder becomes one locked file, named after the folder with .sflocked on the end, and the original folder is deleted. Clock out wraps that step in the rest of an end-of-day routine.

From template: Clock out

Template

Clock out

Plan

Starter (free)

Steps

7

Trigger

None built in: it runs when you click it. The Time, Hotkey and App triggers below are on every plan.

In the template's own words: Ends the working day properly: saves what is in front of you, logs the time, locks your work folder behind encryption, clears the clipboard so nothing sensitive survives the night, and locks the machine. These are its steps, as they ship:

1. 1
   Save whatever is in front of you

   Press Key

   Presses Ctrl+S in whichever window is in front. It saves that one window, not every open file.

2. 2
   Let the save complete

   Wait

   Waits 1.5 seconds so the save can finish.

3. 3
   Log the clock-out time

   Run Command

   Adds a line with the date, the time and "clocked out" to worklog.txt in your Documents folder.

4. 4
   Encrypt the work folder overnight (pick your folder)

   Security Lock

   The lock: Encrypt, on a folder. It ships with no folder and no password, and in Seqtrix 0.16.0 it cannot be saved in this sequence, so the setup below moves it into a sequence of its own.

5. 5
   Clear the clipboard

   Run Command

   Empties the clipboard, so the last thing you copied is not left on it overnight.

6. 6
   Mute the machine

   Media Control

   Sends the mute key, which switches mute on or off: on a PC that is already muted, it turns the sound back on.

7. 7
   Lock the workstation

   System Action

   Locks Windows, as Windows key+L does. Your Windows password or PIN opens it again.

1. 1
   Make the lock sequence

   Create a new sequence, choose the Security tab and add a Security Lock step. Choose Encrypt, then Folders, and Browse to the client folder. Type an Encryption Password and keep a copy in your password manager. Leave Unlock Mode on Manual. Save Sequence, with a name such as Lock Client A.

2. 2
   Trim Clock out

   Open Templates, search for Clock out and click its card. You land in the editor with its steps. Delete its Security Lock step, the one labelled "Encrypt the work folder overnight (pick your folder)", and Save Sequence. What is left saves the window in front, logs the time, clears the clipboard, mutes and locks the PC.

3. 3
   Try it on a test folder first

   Point the lock sequence at a test folder that holds copies of a few files, click Test run, then open the folder again as shown further down. Only then point it at the real client folder.

Make it run when you finish work

Neither sequence has a trigger yet. In Seqtrix, open Schedules, choose + New Schedule, pick the sequence and then a trigger. For the end of the working day:

On the free Starter plan every trigger counts toward its 3 schedules, hotkeys and app triggers included, and up to 2 sequences can hold a security step. Seqtrix has no trigger for Windows locking, signing out, shutting down or going to sleep. The full list is on schedules and triggers.

Before you rely on it

• • Seqtrix has to be running. Closing its window leaves it in the system tray (Minimize to system tray on close is on by default); Quit from the tray icon stops it, and its schedules with it. To have it start with Windows, turn on Launch on startup in Settings, which stays off until you do, then check after your next restart that the Seqtrix icon is in the tray.
• • Close the client's files before the lock runs. Seqtrix does not close them, and a file still open in another program can make the lock step fail part way.
• • Choose Skip for missed runs. If Seqtrix was not running at the set time, the schedule's missed-run setting decides: Skip, Run once or Run all. Run once is the default, and it means the lock, and Clock out with its PC lock, run as soon as Seqtrix starts the next morning. If the PC was asleep with Seqtrix running, the run fires as soon as the PC wakes, whichever you chose.

Getting the folder back in the morning

Seqtrix has no step that unlocks a folder, so the morning is one step by hand, with the password you set on the lock:

• • Double-click the locked file. It is named after the folder with .sflocked on the end. Seqtrix opens Decrypt Encrypted Folder; type the password and choose Decrypt & Open.
• • Or use the Security Dashboard. Open it in Seqtrix, find the lock sequence, choose Decrypt All and type the password.

The folder comes back where it was, with its files. Until the next lock, anything running as you can read them. Three things to know:

• • Unlock before you add anything. If a folder with the same name exists when the lock runs, for example because a new file was saved into a fresh folder of that name, the new locked file replaces the old one, and what the old one held is lost.
• • A folder still locked from yesterday stays locked. If you did not open it today, tonight's lock fails on that step because the folder is not there, and the locked file stays as it was.
• • Leave Unlock Mode on Manual. The Security Lock step also offers Scheduled (Auto-unlock at set time), but it takes one Unlock At date and time. Once that has passed the step refuses to run and changes nothing, so a daily lock with a scheduled unlock would stop locking after the first day.

How the keys work, the password caveats in full and what a recovery key can and cannot open: how the Seqtrix vault works.

What Seqtrix cannot do

Common questions

Keep going

• Template: Clock out, and the rest of the template library
• Password-protect a folder on Windows 11
• Encrypt a file on Windows without BitLocker
• How the Seqtrix vault works: the keys, the password caveats and recovery
• Schedules and triggers: every way to fire a sequence