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The Best Way to Encrypt a Drive for Using on macOS & Windows

I have always encrypted my external drives on my Mac by formatting them as APFS (Encrypted). This has worked well on macOS but the APFS-encrypted drives are hard to use on Windows; from my research, there is no way to read and write to APFS-encrypted drives in Windows. How can I encrypt my external drive in a way that is compatible with Windows?

Best Answered by

iBoysoft author Connie Yang

Connie Yang

Answered on Tuesday, August 5, 2025

The best way for you to encrypt external hard drives that are accessible and writable on both macOS and Windows is to use a third-party assistant.

I recommend you try iBoysoft BitLocker for Mac. This tool supports you using the BitLocker encryption method to encrypt NTFS, exFAT, or FAT32 external hard drives on Mac. Then, you can read and write to the BitLocker-encrypted drive on both your Mac and Windows computer.

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iBoysoft Bitlocker for Mac

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Here're some other features of iBoysoft BitLocker for Mac:

  • Support full read-write access to BitLocker-encrypted SSD, HDD, USB flash drives, SD cards, and more.
  • Support Intel, M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M2 equipped Macs.
  • Compatible with macOS Ventura, Monterey, Big Sur, and earlier versions.
  • Easy to use and safe.

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