Disk Utility for macOS Sierra: Protect a disk with password with Disk Utility

When formatting an internal or external volume, you can encrypt and protect it with a password. If you encrypt an internal disk, you must enter a password to access the disk and its information. If you encrypt an external device, you must enter the password when connecting the device to the computer.

Disk Utility for macOS Sierra: Protect a disk with password with Disk Utility

To encrypt and protect the volume with a password using Disk Utility, you must first erase the volume. If the volume contains files that you want to keep, be sure to copy them to another volume.

Important: You can encrypt the data without deleting it by activating FileVault in the “Security and Privacy” preference panel of System Preferences. It is also possible to encrypt a disk and protect it with a password without deleting it, so you have to click the disk in the Finder with the Control key pressed and select “Encrypt [disk name].”

  1. Select the volume in the sidebar and click the Delete button .If you are protecting an external volume, make sure it is connected to the computer.
  2. Type a name for the volume.
  3. Click the Format drop-down menu and select “Mac OS Plus (with registration, encrypted)”.
  4. Enter a password when prompted.
  5. To prevent recovery of deleted files, click “Security Options”, use the slider to select how many times you want to overwrite deleted data, and then click OK.
  6. Click Delete.

To change the password for your disk or partition, select it in the sidebar and select File> Change Password.

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