FileVault: What Is It and Should You Use It?
85FileVault: What Is It and Should You Use It?
FileVault full-disk encryption (FileVault 2) uses XTS-AES-128 encryption with a 256-bit key to help prevent unauthorized access to the information on your startup disk.
You can use FileVault to encrypt the information on your Mac. FileVault encodes the data on your startup disk so that unauthorized users can’t access your information. See How does FileVault encryption work?
If you've heard about data encryption, you may have wondered if encryption is something that you'd want to implement for your own data and computers. You might be on the fence on whether you should or shouldn't encrypt your data in this post-Snowden age. Or, you might be a health or business professional wanting to safely store client information. What ever your reason, Apple provides data encryption on macOS and Apple calls it FileVault. We're here to help you see if data encryption and FileVault is right for you.
Note: If you have an iMac Pro or another model of Mac with an Apple T2 chip, the data on your drive is already encrypted automatically. However, turning on FileVault provides further protection by requiring your login password to decrypt your data.
To set up FileVault, you must be an administrator. When you turn on FileVault, you choose how you want to unlock your startup disk if you ever forget your password:
iCloud account and password: This choice is convenient if you have an iCloud account or plan to set one up—you don’t need to keep track of a separate recovery key.
Recovery key: The key is a string of letters and numbers that’s created for you—keep a copy of the key somewhere other than your encrypted startup disk. If you write the key down, be sure to exactly copy the letters and numbers shown. Then keep the key somewhere safe that you’ll remember—but not in the same physical location as your Mac, where it can be discovered. If your Mac is at a business or school, your institution can also set a recovery key to unlock it.
This tutorial will apply for MacBook Pro, Air, Mini's running the macOS operating system. This tutorial was performed on a macOS Big Sur system.