Encrypting an External Drive for Mac

Protect the data on your external drive by encrypting and setting a password.   

  1. Connect the external drive to your Mac.
  2. Open the Finder and right click on your drive.
  3. Select the Encrypt option from the popup menu
  4. Set a password, and enter it a second time to verify the password.
  5. It's best practice to provide a hint to help in case the password is forgotten. We suggest you write down the password and put it in a safe place just in case you forget.Image: Mac - set password screen
  6. Click Encrypt Disk to start the encryption process.
  7. Encrypting a drive is a slow process will take on average 1 minute per GB.

Image: Caution sign
IMPORTANT: If you forget this password, you will not be able to retrieve any data.

 

Image: Mac Enter Password screen

 

After the drive has been encrypted, the password will be required to access the data.

Optionally, you can enable the [Remember this password in my keychain] option to have the Mac automatically enter the password in the future.

 

 

 

 

ALTERNATE METHOD: Using the Disk Utility

Image: Caution sign
CAUTION! This method is data destructive becasue the the process involves erasing the drive
 

 

Open the Disk Utility.

Please follow this link for help: ANSWER ID 1362 How to access Disk Utility on MacOS.

Image: Mac Disk Utility/Erase screen

 

 

Select the drive partition to be encrypted, the lower indented icon as shown, and select Erase.

 

 

 

 

Image: Mac Name the Drive screen

 

 

Type a name for the drive and select either OS X Extended (Journaled, Encrypted) (Default) or OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted), depending on your preferences.

 

 

 

Image: Mac password entry screen

 

Set a password and enter it a second time to verify the password.

Click Choose.

It is best practice to provide a hint to help in case you forget your password. We suggest writing down the password and store it in a safe and secure place.

 

Image: Caution sign
IMPORTANT: If you forget this password, you will not be able to retrieve any data.
 

 

Image: Mac Erase screen

 

 

Click on Erase. 

 

 

 

Safely eject the drive and wait a few second the allow the platters to stop spinng before reconnecting the drive to the computer.

 

Image: Mac password entry screen

 

 

After the drive has been encrypted the password will be required to access the data. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you are having difficulty or you have unanswered questions, please contact the Help Desk via email, through the ITS Service Catalog or call (518) 388-6400.

 

 

 

 

 

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