Finder- Free USB Encryption Software for Mac Since macOS Mojave, you can encrypt and decrypt USB flash drive ('thumb drive') or USB-connected hard drive via Finder without erasing data. It's a piece of free encryption software for Mac that inherits the same XTS-AES encryption as FileVault 2. To encrypt an external drive, connect it to your Mac, wait until it mounts on your desktop after you turn it on, and launch Disk Utility. You’ll see a left column that lists the storage devices. Oct 20, 2017 Hi. I'm using High Sierra, and I've just bought a new external hard disk drive for additional storage. I've plugged it in and erased it using Disk Utility as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). But it didn't offer an encryption option, so I can't password protect it.
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Disk Utility User Guide
When you format an internal or external storage device, you can encrypt and protect it with a password. If you encrypt an internal device, you must enter a password to access the device and its information. If you encrypt an external device, you must enter the password when you connect the device to your computer.
Important: If you encrypt an external storage device, you can’t connect it to an AirPort base station for Time Machine backups.
To encrypt and protect the device with a password using Disk Utility, you must erase the device first. If the device contains files you want to save, be sure to copy them to another storage device or volume.
You can encrypt your data without erasing it by turning on FileVault in the Security & Privacy pane of System Preferences (see Encrypt Mac data with FileVault).
You can also encrypt a disk and protect it with a password without erasing it. See Encrypt disks or memory cards to protect your Mac information.
See alsoErase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on MacPartition a physical disk in Disk Utility on Mac
So you have some files that you don’t want anyone accessing. Your Mac is already pretty secure, but what happens when you want to encrypt a USB drive?
This is where disk encryption comes in. Basically, it’ll keep your USB thumb drive safe by encrypting the data on it and requiring a password to access it.
You may not know this, but macOS actually has a few built-in USB encryption features baked into its software — letting you encrypt and decrypt USB drives and other storage media on the fly. Here’s how to use them.
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Related:Use Finder to encrypt USB drives on MacBook
As of macOS Mojave, you can easily encrypt and decrypt generic mass storage devices on-the-go using Finder.
This uses XTS-AES encryption, which is the same type of encryption that the macOS FileVault 2 system uses. Keep in mind that using Finder to encrypt a thumb drive will restrict its usage to macOS. You won’t be able to access the data on it on a Windows or Linux machine.
Finder will then encrypt your thumb drive. Depending on how much data is on it, the process could take a while.
To access the contents of the thumb drive, you’ll need to input the password that you created earlier. There’s absolutely no way to reset this password, so make sure you write it down in a safe place or use a password management platform.
Note: If you don’t see the Encrypt option when you right-click the thumb drive, it means that the USB storage device isn’t in the proper format to use the baked-in macOS encryption. You’ll need to use the following method to encrypt your drive.
Leverage Disk Utility on macOS to encrypt USB drives
As we covered, if you don’t see the Encrypt option, it means that your USB device hasn’t been formatted with a GUID partition map — which is a requirement for Finder encryption.
To get the encryption option, you’ll need to erase your thumb drive and then encrypt it in Disk Utility. Of course, make sure to copy all of the data from your USB drive to a safe location. Somewhere on your Mac’s internal disk is a good option. Once your data is somewhere safe, you can go about actually erasing and encrypting your flash drive.
From here, you’ll be prompted to input a password and hint again. Rtl8188s wlan adapter driver. Like with the Finder method, you’ll want to keep this in a safe place because there’s no option to reset it. When you’re done, click on Erase.
When all is said and done, copy all of the data that was originally on your thumb drive back from the safe location. Once it’s on the drive, it’ll automatically be encrypted and password-protected.
Alternate method
Alternatively, you can also set the Format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and the Scheme to GUID Partition Map. This won’t encrypt your USB drive within Disk Utility, but it will allow you to encrypt it using the simple Finder method.
This may be the preferred option if you don’t want to commit to an encrypted drive and password immediately, but you want to be able to encrypt your storage medium on-the-go later on using Finder.
Mac Os X Sierra Encrypt External Usb Hard Drive Not RecognizedUSB drive encryption that works with Windows PC and Mac
The above two methods will make sure that your data is safe and protected no matter what happens. But, of course, they’ll only work on macOS devices. This is because the Mac OS Extended format, true to its name, is only compatible with Apple computers.
If you need to access your data from a Windows PC or a Linux machine, then you’ll want to opt for a third-party encryption solution. A couple of high-quality options are DiskCryptor and VeraCrypt.
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They’re both completely free to use and open source, but they don’t skimp on the encryption quality. In fact, both apps offer a variety of different encryption options — such as AES, Twofish and Serpent.
You can’t go wrong with either. They’re both also fairly simple to use, so we’ll refrain from offering any in-depth instructions on how to encrypt using them. Just make sure to encrypt your drive using a Windows- or Linux-compatible format like FAT32.
For more information, you can visit their respective websites.
If you use USB drives to carry information, it is always a good idea to encrypt the drive so that your privacy and security is protected in the case you lose the drive. This is particularly true if you use thumb drives to store personal photos or contract documents etc. We hope that you find these tips helpful. Please let us know in the comments below if you have any questions for us.
Mike is a freelance journalist from San Diego, California.
While he primarily covers Apple and consumer technology, he has past experience writing about public safety, local government, and education for a variety of publications.
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He’s worn quite a few hats in the journalism field, including writer, editor, and news designer.
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