

You can check the drive format easily, control-click (or right-click) on the drive’s icon and select Get Info. If the encrypt option is not available then your drive might not be formatted as a Mac drive.
#WHY ENCRYPT MAC HARD DRIVE PASSWORD#
So, please leave yourself a good hint but also add this password to your password list. There is no alternative way to break through the encryption and get to your data. Please note, the Apple requires you to enter a hint. Why do they do this? Because, if you forget the password then you’ll lose access to all of the data on that drive. Depending upon the capacity of the drive and the amount of data on the driv, the encryption process could take anywhere from a few seconds, if the drive is empty, to many hours or even a day or longer if it’s a large capacity drive with a lot of data on it. Type in a hint to remind you what the password is. In the Verify Password field type in the encryption password a second time. Then a window will appear prompting you to type in a password which will be used to encrypt the drive.


Apple makes it easy to encrypt an external drive.The feature is built into macOS, the Mac operating system. Right-click (or control-click) on the drive’s icon on your Mac’s Desktop (or in the left-hand sidebar of a Finder window) which causes a menu to appear. Each time that drive is connected to another Mac you’ll need to enter a password before the drive is available and before you can view or edit the files on the drive. Alleging you forgot your encryption password is another story.Do you want to encrypt an external hard drive or USB flash drive connected to your Mac? Encrypting the drive will protect the data on that drive. It's worth noting that encryption is not 100 percent effective.Īnd failing to comply with a judge's decryption order - or any order for that matter - might result in a contempt charge and land you in jail pending compliance. That's because the authorities had recorded a jailhouse conversation between her and a co-defendant, in which the laptop's contents were discussed. The issue was later mooted for defendant Romano Fricosu as a co-defendant eventually supplied a password.Ĭontrary to the Wisconsin child pornography case, however, the Fricosu matter was distinguishable because the authorities had evidence that her hard drive might contain evidence against her, meaning the court felt her Fifth Amendment rights were not at issue. Just last year, for example, a federal appeals court rejected an appeal from a bank-fraud defendant who has been ordered to decrypt her laptop so its contents could be used in her criminal case. To be sure, decryption orders are rare, and they have never been squarely addressed by the Supreme Court despite varying opinions in the lower courts.

The suspect was not immediately reachable. "The FBI is performing admirable in the digital arms race between those seeking to hide evidence of their wrongdoing through encryption and law enforcement officers seeking to uncover that evidence but the expense in time and resources in investigating cases like this one is beginning to inhibit the provision of justice," the government said (.pdf) in seeking the magistrate to compel the suspect to unlock the data.
