There are many ways to encrypt USB Flash Drive in Mac, also you can use many tools to encrypt your files or full disk, but in this tutorial, we are going to use Mac Internal Encryption program which is highly recommended. Another method: We are creating another folder inside your USB drive which is encrypted and contain your sensitive data in it.
BitLocker is a disk encryption utility on Windows that protects an entire disk from unauthorized access by adding a password to it. Although BitLocker was designed for Windows only, you might want to access the encrypted drive on a Mac sometimes. Since BitLocker is not native to Mac OS X and macOS, you may run into problems when trying to open Bitlocker encrypted external drive like a USB. After encrypting USB flash drive with BitLocker on Mac, we can use M3 BitLocker Loader for Mac to open/access BitLocker encrypted USB flash drive on macOS Big Sur 11/Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/Sierra 10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8 Operating Systems.
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Home > Resources > Access Bitlocker Encrypted Drive on Mac
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Usb Flash Drive Encryption Mac Os X
BitLocker is a disk encryption utility on Windows that protects an entire disk from unauthorized access by adding a password to it. Although BitLocker was designed for Windows only, you might want to access the encrypted drive on a Mac sometimes. Since BitLocker is not native to Mac OS X and macOS, you may run into problems when trying to open Bitlocker encrypted external drive like a USB flash drive on your Mac. This article gives an overview of the BitLocker tool, reasons why it can't be opened natively in Mac and what tools you need in order to be able to do so.
What is BitLocker?
BitLocker was designed to prevent offline attacks on external hard drives. For example, if someone steals your drive and tries to access the data, they won't be able to do so with BitLocker encryption being applied to the drive. The security protocol for BitLocker involves the use of 128 or 256-bit keys in cipher block chaining (CBC) mode, and used the AES standard for data encryption. BitLocker has always been a Windows-only utility, and supports all versions of the operating system starting from Windows Vista Ultimatate and Enterprise.
Can I Open Bitlocker Encrypted Drive on Mac?
Since Bitlocker was developed by Microsoft exclusively for the Windows environment, it is not compatible with macOS and Mac OS X. The simple reason is that Mac does not support the program, and there's no version available for Mac computers. However, that doesn't mean you can't access your drive from a Mac after it was encrypted by BitLocker. Instead, you have to use a third-party utility to access the content in Bitlocker encrypted drives on Mac. Fortunately, several of them are available for free. If you want more advanced features, you can also consider using some premium products available on the market.
How to Access Bitlocker Encrypted Drive on Mac
One of the best free BitLocker utilities for Mac that will allow you to open an encrypted external drive on a computer running Apple's operating system is M3 BitLocker Loader for Mac. As long as you know the password for the encrypted drive, you can use this to open it and access the files inside on your Mac computer. On the flip side, it means that you can't access the data inside the drive if it is corrupted or you forgot the password. Assuming the password for decrypting the drive is known, it is very easy to install M3 BitLocker Loader for Mac and quickly gain access to your encrypted data.
Another great utility for opening BitLocker-protected drives on a Mac is Hasleo BitLocker Anywhere for Mac. One unique feature of this software utility is that it allows you to use both the native file explorer as well as the native volume-mounting tool to access your files, depending on your preference. You can also add files to the unlocked external drive and then lock it again with the same password. While being accessed on the Mac, the files in the drive are unprotected. Once you eject and remove the drive, however, the new files will also be encrypted by BitLocker.
How Does Bitlocker Loader or Reader Work on Mac?
There are several third-party tools available for this, but most utilities for using BitLocker on Mac work in pretty much the same way. They either let you mount the drive on Mac or allow you to open it using a built-in file browsing utility. Since Mac's Finder app doesn't natively support drives protected by BitLocker encryption, you will need the software even if you're just opening the file to view and download the contents. The general process is to install the software and then launch it. Xara for mac. After that, the mounted drive can be imported into the software and unlocked. Depending on which utility you're using, you may have to choose the software's file explorer option to access the protected data.
Such utilities are usually very intuitive in that you don't have to have extensive knowledge about encryption algorithms and so on. That means even new users will be comfortable using these tools. If you're working regularly on both Windows and Mac computers and need to have your external drive data protected by BitLocker, then you definitely need one of these tools for your Mac computer in order to open, edit and make changes to the drive. Once it's done, the drive will revert back to its encrypted state, with all newly added files also being encrypted until the next time you unlock them.
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Posted by Tim to BitLocker for Mac Tips on March 16th, 2017
How can I encrypt a USB flash drive in Windows 7/8/10 and have it readable on macOS 10.13 High Sierra/10.12 Sierra/Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan?
Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues. TrueCrypt official site suggests users to migrate from TrueCrypt to BitLocker, so up to now, BitLocker is the best and secure way to encrypt data.
Although Microsoft only released BitLocker for Windows, but with the help of M3 BitLocker Loader for Mac, BitLocker drive encryption is compatible with macOS and encryting USB flash drive with BitLocker drive encryption can be easily done.
How to encrypt USB flash drive with BitLocker on Mac?
Step 1: Insert USB flash drive into Mac computer.
Step 2: Download, install and launch M3 BitLocker Loader for Mac.
Step 3: Click 'Encrypt' button in toolbar.
Step 4: Select the partition which you want to encrypt and click Encrypt.
Step 5: Enter the password.
Step 6: Save the recovery key.
Step 7: Complete BitLocker drive encryption.
After encrypting USB flash drive with BitLocker on Mac, we can use M3 BitLocker Loader for Mac to open/access BitLocker encrypted USB flash drive on macOS Big Sur 11/Catalina 10.15/Mojave 10.14/High Sierra 10.13/Sierra 10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8 Operating Systems.
Video tutorial:
How to encrypt USB flash drive with BitLocker on Windows PC?
To enable BitLocker drive encryption on a USB flash drive, do the following:
Step 1: Insert a USB flash drive to a Windows computer where installed Windows 10 Professional/Enterprise, Windows 8/8.1 Professional/Enterprise, Windows 7 Ultimate/Enterprise, Windows Vista Ultimate/Enterprise, Windows Server 2008/2012, only these Windows editions support BitLocker drive encryption. If you only have Windows 7/8/10 Home edition, please refer to: How to turn on BitLocker drive encryption on Windows 7/8/10 Home edition?
![Usb Usb](/uploads/1/1/9/3/119382807/687635793.jpg)
Step 2: Format USB flash drive into FAT32/NTFS/exFAT file system. If there is data in USB flash drive, please go to step 3.
Step 3: Right click USB flash drive in My Computer or This PC and select 'Turn on BitLocker'.
Step 4: On the 'Choose How You Want To Unlock This Drive' window, choose one or more for the following options, and then click Next:
'Use A Password To Unlock This Drive': Select this option if you want to be prompted for a password to unlock the drive. Passwords allow a drive to be unlocked in any location and to be shared with other people.
'Use My Smart Card To Unlock The Drive': Select this option if you want to use a smart card and enter the smart card PIN to unlock the drive. Because this feature requires a smart card reader, it is normally used to unlock a drive in the workplace and not for drives that might be used outside the workplace.
Step 5: On the 'How Do You Want To Store Your Recovery Key' window, click Save The Recovery Key To A File.
Step 6: In the 'Save BitLocker Recovery Key As' window, choose a storage location and then click Save.
Step 7: On the 'Are You Ready To Encrypt This Drive' window, click Start Encrypting. Do not remove the USB flash drive until the encryption process is complete. How long the encryption process takes depends on the size of the drive and other factors.
Encrypt Usb Flash Drive Mac Mojave
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