Home > Questions

Encrypted Drive Not Prompting for Password (Not in Keychain)

My encrypted drive suddenly won't prompt for the password anymore when I connect it to my MacBook Pro running macOS Ventura. I find that it is not saved in Keychain.

Best Answered by

iBoysoft author Connie Yang

Connie Yang

Answered on Tuesday, December 3, 2024

Can you see the files on the drive on your MacBook? If you can, you must have an entry to access the drive.

There are only two cases for your encrypted external drive that won't prompt for the password on a Mac. One is that you've canceled the encryption to the drive but forgot that.

The other is that you probably have checked the Remember in Keychain checkbox the previous time you inserted the encrypted drive into your Mac. The password of the drive is saved to the keychain but you fail to find it from there.

You can go to Disk Utility to check if the drive is still labeled APFS (Encrypted), or go to the app that you've used to encrypt the drive to have a check.

If the drive is still encrypted, navigate to KeyChain Access (Finder > Applications > Utilities). It is the only place where the password of the encrypted drive is saved on your Mac.

  1. Open KeyChain Access and click on "login" from the left sidebar.
  2. In the upper right corner search box, search for the name of the volume on the disk rather than the disk name.
  3. Right-click the volume of the drive from the results and then click Delete Volume Name.

Then, eject your disk and re-connect it to your Mac, and you'll find the prompt for the password to show up again.

People Also Ask

Read More Questions

Read More Advice From iBoysoft's Computer Experts

turn off empty trash automatically Mac

Turn off Empty Trash Automatically on Mac & Recover Files

Read to learn how to turn off empty Trash automatically on Mac and restore the files emptied from the Mac Trash.

How to Tips

L'élément ne peut pas être déplacé vers la corbeille car il est ouvert

Fixé! L'application ne peut pas être déplacée vers la corbeille car elle est ouverte

Si vous recevez l'erreur 'L'élément ne peut pas être déplacé vers la corbeille car il est ouvert' en supprimant une application sur votre Mac, vous pouvez lire ce post pour apprendre comment le corriger et supprimer des applications indésirables de Mac.

lock screen

How to Fix Mac User Switching Doesn’t Work Sequoia & Earlier

This post walks you through effective solutions for the user switching doesn’t work on macOS Sequoia/Sonoma/Ventura.

News Tips