How to encrypt, password protect external hard drive for Mac & Windows PC usage?

This post covers:

• 1. How to format external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC usage?
• 2. How to password protect external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC usage?

How to format external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC usage?

1. Format external hard drive to FAT32/exFAT file system.

Although FAT32/exFAT file system is developed by Microsoft, macOS can also read/write external hard drives with FAT32/exFAT file system.

2. Format external hard drive to NTFS file system.

Although the NTFS file system is developed by Microsoft, macOS can only read NTFS external hard drive and cannot write NTFS external hard drive, you need to install an extra NTFS for Mac app if you want to write NTFS external hard drive on Mac.

How to password protect external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC usage?

As far as we know, there are many cross-platform encryption solutions (such as TrueCrypt), but BitLocker is more secure than other drive encryption software. Although Microsoft just developed and released BitLocker for Windows and there's no Mac implementation, with the help of M3 BitLocker Loader for Mac, BitLocker encrypted external hard drive can be readable on Mac. Let's get to the details of encrypting your external hard drive for Windows and Mac.

Tutorial to encrypt an external hard drive with BitLocker on Windows

Tutorial to encrypt external hard drive with BitLocker on Mac

Step 1: Download and install M3 BitLocker Loader for Mac.

Step 2: Insert an external hard drive into Mac computer.

Step 3: Launch M3 BitLocker Loader for Mac.

Step 4: Click the "Encrypt" button in the toolbar.

Step 5: Select the partition which you want to encrypt and click Encrypt.

Step 6: Enter the password.

Step 7: Save the recovery key.

Step 8: Complete BitLocker drive encryption.

After encrypting, you can use M3 BitLocker Loader for Mac to open the BitLocker encrypted drive on Mac and then read/write this drive as same as your Mac's native drive.