I know I could and should encrypt whole drives but I want another layer of protect specific folders when my devices are unlocked, a password. I want the folders to behave like regular folders where I can add or remove files as usual, without a clunky UX like password protected zips. I looked it up and didn’t find any straightforward solutions.
Cryptomator is best for dirs and anything synced to the cloud. You can also use something like rclone, locally, but it’s more for remote backup of data. Veracrypt dirs are predefined in size, so it’s best to only use for full disk encryption, fixed archives, etc.
Password protection only means protection if the data behind it is encrypted with that password. In all other cases, the data should be considered compromised (visible/accessible) the moment anyone else has access to the hardware or software storing it.