How to Encrypt, Decrypt, and Recover Mac Hard Drive Files?
Summary: This blog shares various methods to encrypt and decrypt a Mac hard drive and recover files lost from an encrypted drive. Download the free-to-try Mac data recovery software to recover encrypted hard drive files.
Contents
What is Mac hard drive encryption?
macOS provides FileVault to encrypt your Mac hard drive which helps protect your data from prying eyes and hackers. FileVault full-disk encryption (FileVault 2) uses XTS-AES-128 bit encryption with a 256-bit key to help prevent unapproved access to the information on your startup disk.
How to Encrypt or Decrypt Mac Hard Drive?
macOS has several native methods to encrypt and decrypt a Mac hard drive. The following sections illustrate the methods in detail. Also, learn how to recover data from an encrypted or corrupt Mac hard drive.
Methods to Encrypt or Decrypt Mac hard drive:
A. Encrypt or Decrypt Storage Drive using Finder
macOS Finder allows you to encrypt or decrypt your internal or external Mac hard drive and volume quickly.
To encrypt your Mac hard drive by using Finder, perform the following steps:
- Use the internal Mac volume or connect the external storage drive you wish to encrypt.
- Launch Finder, and from the left pane, secondary-click a drive or volume and select the Encrypt ‘Drive_Name’ option.
- Set a password and hint as requested by macOS. Wait till the hard drive encrypts. And, from now on, you need to key in the password to unlock the drive.
Similar to encrypting a hard drive, macOS Finder also makes the process of decryption easy.
To decrypt a hard drive by using Finder, perform the following steps:
- Open Finder, and from the left pane, secondary-click on the encrypted hard drive and select the Decrypt ‘Drive_Name’ option.
- After Mac decrypts the drive, access the hard drive directly without any password.
B. Encrypt or Decrypt Storage Drive using FileVault
FileVault is the native disk encryption application that allows you to encrypt your startup disk. It uses your login password as an encryption key.
Steps to encrypt your Mac hard drive using FileVault:
- Go to Apple menu > System Preferences > Security & Privacy > FileVault tab.
- Click the Lock icon and enter admin credentials. Click the “Turn On FileVault” button.
- Provide a password to encrypt the disk. Your Mac encrypts the disk in the background. You can check the encryption progress from the FileVault section.
- After encryption, restart your Mac and provide the login password to finish starting up.
When you don’t want to keep your Mac hard drive encrypted any longer due to some reason, you can decrypt your encrypted Mac hard drive by using FileVault.
Steps to decrypt your Mac hard drive using FileVault:
- Open the FileVault tab from Security & Privacy, as explained before. Click the “Turn Off FileVault” button. Your Mac decrypts the disk in the background. You can check the decryption progress from the FileVault section.
- After decryption, restart your Mac. Now, you won’t need any password to unlock your Mac hard drive.
C. Encrypt or Decrypt Storage Drive using Disk Utility
Disk Utility has the option to erase your Mac hard drive in an encrypted format—APFS (Case-sensitive, encrypted), Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted), or Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted).
Steps to encrypt your Mac hard drive using Disk Utility:
- For non-startup disk, launch Disk Utility from Finder > Applications > Utilities. Or else, press Command + Spacebar to bring Spotlight. Type ‘disk utility’ and click the Disk Utility search result to launch the application.
- From Disk Utility, select the internal non-boot Mac volume or the external hard drive you want to protect via password, then click the Erase tab.
Warning: Erasing a drive will remove all its content, so back up before performing the erase operation.
- In the Format section, click the drop-down menu to select an encryption format.
- In the Name section, provide your hard drive with a name and click Erase. Before macOS erases the drive, it displays a dialog box asking for a password.
- Enter the password that is easy to remember yet difficult to crack for others. Don’t forget to provide a Password Hint. Disk Utility completes the erase process of your hard drive.
- When the erase process is over, the encrypted drive mounts on the Mac. Enter the drive’s password each time you access it. If you forget the password, the drive will turn inaccessible.
Steps to encrypt Macintosh HD, the startup disk, using Disk Utility in macOS Recovery mode:
- Start or restart your Mac and immediately by pressing and holding Command + R keys. Release the keys when the Apple logo appears. Your Mac boots into macOS Recovery mode.
- From the macOS Utilities window, select Disk Utility and click Continue. Erase the startup disk in an encryption format after backing it up by using Time Machine.
- Reinstall macOS from the macOS Utilities window. Finally, restore the backed-up data from the Time Machine backup drive to the encrypted drive.
Disk Utility also allows you to decrypt a Mac hard drive that you have erased using an encryption format.
Steps to decrypt your Mac hard drive using Disk Utility:
- Open Disk Utility, then select your encrypted storage drive.
- To unlock the hard drive, go to File > Unlock ‘Drive_Name.’
- Enter the password when prompted.
- To decrypt the hard drive, go to File > ‘Turn Off Encryption.’
D. Encrypt or Decrypt Storage Drive using Terminal
The Terminal is a powerful application that can help you to encrypt or decrypt your Mac hard drive. But since you need to have a complete know-how of Terminal commands, any incorrect operation can result in data loss. So, back up your data from the drive before executing any Terminal command.
Steps to encrypt a hard drive using Terminal:
- Launch Terminal from Finder > Application > Utilities.
- Type the code “diskutil apfs list” and hit Return. The Terminal produces a list of all APFS volumes and containers. Note down the APFS volume ID information.
- To encrypt volume, type “diskutil apfs encryptVolume /dev/apfs_volume_id” and hit Return. Type the password for encryption when asked. Type again to confirm the password.
- To monitor encryption progress, type “diskutil apfs list” and hit Return.
Similarly, you can decrypt your encrypted Mac hard drive by using Terminal.
Steps to decrypt an APFS encrypted drive using Terminal:
- Launch Terminal. Type “diskutil apfs list” and hit Return to know the APFS volume ID.
- Type “diskutil apfs unlockVolume /dev/apfs_volume_id -passphrase type_the_key”, then hit Return to unlock the volume.
- Type “diskutil apfs decryptVolume /dev/apfs_volume_id” and hit Return to decrypt the volume. Authenticate when prompted.
- To monitor decryption progress, type “diskutil apfs list” and hit Return.
For other drives, do the following:
- Launch Terminal and type the code “diskutil cs list” and hit Return. The Terminal produces a core storage list in a hierarchy. Copy the alphanumeric code that is logical volume UUID, which is next to Logical Volume Group.
- Type “diskutil cs decryptVolume logical_volume_uuid -passphrase type_the_key” and hit Return.
But what if you delete few crucial files from an encrypted hard drive, or the drive itself turns corrupt. In such cases, you need to salvage your lost data.
Data Recovery on Encrypted Mac Drive
A. Recover Encrypted Mac Hard Drive with Time Machine
Mac data loss can occur from an encrypted hard drive due to accidental deletion, formatting, or corruption. So, setting up a Time Machine backup hard drive is the need of time.
Time Machine performs incremental backups of your encrypted Macintosh HD as per the schedule. And in case of data loss, you can use Time Machine to restore your lost data to your Mac drive.
Steps to recover encrypted Mac hard drive with Time Machine:
- Ensure your Time Machine backup drive is connected to your Mac. Launch Time Machine from the Launchpad.
- Find the deleted or lost files by using Up/Down arrows or Timeline. Select the required files and folders, then click Restore. The files will restore to their actual location.
B. Recover Encrypted Mac Hard Drive with Professional Software
What if you haven’t set up your Time Machine backup drive? Or you didn’t connect the backup drive to your Mac to perform an incremental backup. Only a Mac data recovery software can help you recover data from an encrypted hard drive in such cases.
Watch this video to know how you can encrypt, decrypt and recover MAC hard drive?
- Install the *trial version of Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac on your iMac, MacBook, or Mac mini from where the data is lost.
- In the ‘Select What To Recover’ screen, either select ‘Recover Everything’ or toggle on specific file types to customize your scan, then click Next.
- In the ‘Select Location’ screen, select your internal or external encrypted Mac drive. Provide the password to unlock the drive.
- When you scan your startup disk in macOS Ventura, Monterey, Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, or High Sierra, you must load the Stellar Data Recovery extension for Macintosh HD recovery. Learn More
- Toggle on Deep Scan, then click Scan. Wait till the software scans the encrypted hard drive thoroughly. The software can also scan a corrupt encrypted drive.
- After the scan is over, select a view out of the three views Classic List, File List, and Deleted List. Expand the scanned items listed by the software.
- Double-click a file to launch its preview to check its quality. Select all the desired files.
- Click Recover to save your recoverable files. Click Browse to specify a distinct drive location, then click Save. Open the destination drive to verify the recovered data.
*The trial version of the software allows you to free scan your encrypted storage drive and preview your files for free. To save the recoverable files, activation of the software is mandatory. And why hesitate when the software has a 30-day money-back guarantee, just in case.
What if the decryption password is lost?
If the decryption password is lost, then your drive is lost forever. You can’t retrieve data from the drive anymore. For that reason, always keep the decryption password in a safe location so that it can be used as and when required.
Conclusion
Although macOS has made the encryption and decryption process easy and convenient, you should be careful in following the crucial troubleshooting steps, as a small mistake can lead to permanent data loss.
Suppose you have faced a data loss disaster, leverage Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac software to help you recover your data from an encrypted hard drive. Besides, the software recovers data when the drive turns corrupt during the decryption process.
This versatile software performs data recovery on APFS and can handle any logical data loss situation with ease—encryption, corruption, inaccessibility, erasure, or emptying of Trash. To check its interface, scan-capability, and other powerful features, download the free-to-try software. Scan the encrypted/corrupt drive and preview files. And once satisfied, you can activate it for a lifetime.
I accidentally reformatted my 5TB HFS+ case-insensitive encrypted drive to FAT using quick format using the macOS Disk Utility GUI. It results in a failure leaving the drive unable to mount. A quick check in diskutil shows the partitions are still intact, yet macOS does not automatically detect the volumes. I presume some essential header information was deleted or corrupted by Disk Utility.
What happened was, I formatted the entire drive using the Erase dialog with Format “MS-DOS (FAT)” and Scheme “GUID Partition Map”
This resulted in an immediate failure with message: “Erase process has failed and Details: Couldn’t open device. Operation failed…” There doesn’t seem to be any options or flags to receive more verbose output.
At this point, the drive can no longer be mounted as macOS no longer recognizes the volumes on it and cannot automatically detect or repair them.
Is it possible to recover this encrypted partition/disk?
Hello David,
I am sharing the solution below with you:
i) Connect your hard drive and go to Disk Utility
ii) See if your hard drive is showing up in the left corner of the disk utility. (it will show as an unmounted drive)
iii) Download Stellar Mac Data Recovery
iv) Launch the software and click ‘Start Scan’.
V) On the left corner of software drive menu << select your hard drive. Further select Recover Data << Advanced Recovery to launch data recovery scan. Let the software complete the scan. Vi) After the scan is over, all files from the external hard drive will be listed for the preview. You can double-click file(s) to get an instant preview of the files. Up to above, the software runs in the demo mode. To recover all your files you require to register the Stellar Mac data recovery software.
Vishal, my Western Digital 1 TB external hard drive is encrypted, but some files deleted accidentally. Ironically, I need to remove the encryption, and I know that the WD will get formatted and files will be gone. I have already backed up all files except those which got deleted recently. I am wondering if I should try Stellar and then remove decryption? Will it do the job?
Hi Sawn,
Better you do the data recovery first with Stellar Mac data recovery program and then go ahead to destroy hard drives encryption. Hope this helps.
I was able to scan my encrypted drive that was formatted via raw recovery. It listed all the folders, and files from that drive.
But when I restored the file, the file has data. But when i try to open it, the application can’t read it. So I think the encryption is on the file as well, which I’m not sure if this software can de-encrypt the actual file.
Hello Ken,
Your query has been forwarded to technical support. Our executive will contact you soon to resolve your issue. Thanks.
Hello, Vishal!
Is there any chance to get back info from my main Mac SSD (it was encrypted) i formatted it and reinstalled a new OS on it? Forgot to backup one important thing.
Hi Alvis,
I recommend you free download Stellar Mac Data Recovery software and scan your SSD to preview your lost files. Thanks.
Hey, i did it yesterday. Stellar gave me just the existing data, nothing from the data before formatting.
Hi again,
Could you let me know which data recovery option you ran from the Stellar interface? Also, are you looking for some specific file type for recovery?
Regards
Vishal
Tried advanced recover data and also raw recovery.
I think the software doesn’t know, that the disk was encrypted before. It is trying to restore it as it is right now.
Hi Alvis,
Our support team will contact you soon.
Regards
While working with my 1 TB encrypted hard disk drive (not FileVault encryption), I accidentally formatted it to FAT file system. The HFS+ 1 TB HDD had my years of photos, videos and college documents. In the absence of another backup copy of the hard drive how it is possible to restore data from the hard drive, which got accidentally erased?
Hi Pat,
Below are some important Discussions that matters
Encrypted volume recovery wholesomely depends upon the several factors, which are as follows
Software Recommendations
My friend handed me an encrypted HFS+ hard drive for data recovery. I have Stellar Mac data recovery V6.0.0.3 installed on my iMac. The software is unable to scan the hard drive. How should I make it recover files from it. Do let me know quickly since your software has performed in the past and I need to get the data ASAP.
Hi Mic, in order to scan and recover files from an encrypted hard drive, you must install Stellar Mac data recovery V7.0. Earlier versions of the software doesn’t support encrypted drive recovery. Please upgrade to latest version in order to save files.
I scanned my macintosh encrypted hard drive and it found all the folders and files. But when I try to preview the file it doesn’t show anything. When I recover the file, I can’t open it in the application I used to create it. it says it’s not the right format.
Am I SOL?
Hi Ken,
Our Tech Support Team will contact you soon.
Best Regards
Vishal
Hello, Want a help. I added new HDD and and El Capitan is running properly, Now when i inserted old HDD(USING USB) it shows me the folders except my home folder. I can access system folders, Shared Folders, But when i select my home folder (in my case kulin) it doesn’t show me any files inside.
I downloaded Stellar Mac Recovery and scanned it, it shows my folders (in quick scan) as lost folders. Now what to do?
I also tried using stellar volume optimiser and in optimiser when i select my old hdd it says its encrypted.
Will buying new stellar recovery solve my issue. please guide/help me so that i can proceed accordingly.
Waiting for your help.
Hi Kulin,
Thanks for writing your query to us, please find my answer below:
When the software lists the HOME folder then you can double click it to view the files inside it. Doing this will let you know that the software will recover the following listed files from it. Once confirmed, you can register the product to recover and save the files to your local hard drive. Stellar Volume Optimizer is a Mac hard drive utility that repairs corrupt directory structure. Currently the software doesn’t support repairing an encrypted hard drive. Hope this resolves your problem.
Will Stellar Mac Data Recovery application recover encrypted iTunes backup files which got deleted from my iPhone 6S? Please let me know.
Hi Duane,
To recover deleted files or an encrypted iTunes backup files from an iPhone, you need to download and install Stellar Recovery for iPhone Application. It recoups deleted camera roll pictures, images, notes, iMessages, WhatsApp attachments, safari bookmarks. The best part of the software is its compatibility with OS X and Windows. List of Supports iPhones are iPhone 6S, 6 Plus, 6, 5s, 5c, 5, 4s and 4.
I encrypted my disk with File Vault on OS X El Capitan 10.11.5. I cleaned some files from the Mac and deleted them from trash later realising that some of my files were important. How can I get them back on this encrypted hard drive
No worries Keith, you can recover back your files for free with Stellar Mac Data Recovery 1 GB Free Edition. Check this link out