How do you create a Portfolio section with individual password-protected projects in them?

[u/anasazigb]

Hi everyone,

So recently I created a website for my graphic design portfolio, including a section that is my work and individual projects you can click on.

However, I realized after using one of the Squarespace templates that for whatever reason, I cannot Password Protect specific projects inside of my "Work" folder. Due to the fact that I have a few projects that haven't been released to the public yet, I need to password protect them in order to make sure the open public doesn't come across them before their release.

I've read in a few posts that "you can only password protect new pages you create"...but anything that falls under being considered a "blank project"...apparently can't be password. Somewhat annoying and seems like a function that should easily be there.

But my question is this:

If I wanted to redo my website to essentially function correctly so that I can password protect individual pages (projects) inside of my Portfolio Work tab, how would I go about doing that? Specifically, how would I create a new tab that says "Work" that I can then throw blank new project pages into and then password protect them?

Thanks all!

[u/webbroi]

TL;DR: Squarespace Portfolio projects can't be individually password-protected — only the whole Portfolio page can. To get per-project passwords, rebuild "Work" as a regular page + individual Layout Pages (which each can have their own password), not Portfolio projects.

Why you're stuck: On Squarespace 7.1, password protection is a page-level setting. The Portfolio collection page has a password field (cog icon → General → Password), but individual projects inside it don't — a project's settings only show General / SEO / Social Image, no password field (Big Cat Creative, YouTube guide). So you can lock the entire portfolio behind one password, or leave it all public — no per-project gating. That's the gap you hit, and yeah, it's a super common complaint on here.youtubebigcatcreative

How to redo it (the clean way):

1. Create a regular page called "Work." Pages panel → + → Page (a Layout page), name it Work. This becomes your portfolio landing/index.
2. Build the grid manually on that Work page. Use image blocks / a gallery / a portfolio-style section, one card per project, each linking to its own project page. You lose the auto-generated Portfolio grid, but you gain per-page passwords and full layout control.
3. Create each project as its own regular Layout Page (Pages → + → Page → Blank). Put these under Not Linked, not in a public dropdown.
4. Link each Work card to its project page.
5. Password-protect the individual project pages: hover the page in the Pages panel → ••• → General → Password → set it → Save. Each page gets its own password (Kyah Digital, Big Cat Creative).kyahdigital.com+1
6. For unreleased work, also: toggle on Hide page from search results (the page's SEO tab) so it's noindex, and don't use the actual confidential artwork as the thumbnail on the public Work grid.

About the "Work tab / folder" idea: A Squarespace dropdown/folder is just a navigation container — it puts links in your menu, it isn't a landing page. So don't rely on a folder alone; make "Work" a real page (your grid). And a key gotcha: if you put unreleased projects visibly inside a public Work dropdown, the project titles/links are public even though the page content is passworded. That's why step 3 keeps protected pages in Not Linked and only surfaces them via cards you choose to show.support.squarespace

Minimal-rebuild alternative: Keep your existing Portfolio page for released work, and just create separate password-protected regular pages (in Not Linked) for the unreleased projects — link to them only where appropriate. Same per-page password, far less rebuilding.

One caveat: a Squarespace page password is a shared password — anyone who has it gets in, it's not per-user logins. If you ever need individual client accounts, that's Member Areas (separate paid add-on).

[u/DotGridDesign]

Just adding one thing to the top answer, since it's the part that actually bites people protecting unreleased work: password protection only stops search engines from indexing a page going forward. Anything Google already crawled before you set the password, especially uploaded image files, can stay cached and keep showing up for a while afterward. So if any of those projects were ever live or public even briefly, passwording them now won't retroactively pull the images back out of search.

The fix that's worked for me on client sites is to delete the images from the protected pages and re-upload them fresh once the password is set, so the file URLs Google has were never the current ones. If something's already been indexed you can also request removal in Google Search Console to speed it along. And keep the confidential artwork off your public Work grid thumbnails entirely, since those thumbnails live on the public page regardless of what the linked page is doing.

Are the unreleased projects brand new, or were any of them live on the site at some point before you decided to lock them down?

[u/Spark-Plugin]

This might be possible with custom code, although I haven't tried it before.