The invention discloses a file encryption method and terminal and a computer readable storage medium. When a gesture operation acting on a target file icon is received, whether or not the gesture is apreset encryption trigger gesture is detected, if the gesture operation is the preset encryption trigger gesture, a file encryption process is triggered, and according to the file encryption process,the file corresponding to the target file icon is encrypted. In this way, when a user performs the file encryption, the file encryption can be directly achieved by conducting a direct specific gesture operation on the file icon of the current display interface, multi-level page turns are not needed, required operation steps are less, the user's time is saved, and the user experience is better; meanwhile, because the operation is conducted on the file icon, the display interface of a file content is not accessed, which fully guarantees privacy and confidentiality of the file in the file encryption process, and avoids possibility of the file being revealed in the file encryption process.