Protect the data on your external drive by encrypting and setting a password.
- Connect the external drive to your Mac.
- Open the Finder and right click on your drive.
- Select the Encrypt option from the popup menu
- Set a password, and enter it a second time to verify the password.
- 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.
- Click Encrypt Disk to start the encryption process.
- Encrypting a drive is a slow process will take on average 1 minute per GB.
IMPORTANT: If you forget this password, you will not be able to retrieve any data.
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
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.
Select the drive partition to be encrypted, the lower indented icon as shown, and select Erase.
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.
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.
IMPORTANT: If you forget this password, you will not be able to retrieve any data.
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.
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.