And if you don’t, you can still format the drive, which we’ll detail a little further down. This only works if you know the password. In the menu that pops up, select Decrypt “Drive Name” and enter the password. To unlock an encrypted hard drive, Control-click the drive icon in the main Finder view or the sidebar. Here’s a guide on macOS disk permissions to help you understand the technical concepts. This lets you change the permissions to Read & Write for yourself while keeping the drive read-only for other users. If this is a drive you last formatted, you can change the individual permissions in the box above. The drive is encrypted, meaning you can’t access it in any way until you’ve decrypted the disk. The external hard drive uses a partially supported file system, like NTFS, which macOS only supports as read-only.

The drive is set to read-only permissions, so you can’t add or delete files. This is partially because it can refer to a few different problems: The concept of unlocking an external hard drive on a Mac may not be familiar to you. What Does It Mean When a Hard Drive Is Locked on Your Mac? This isn’t often a major problem, and more often than not, it’s simple to solve. If you’re facing permission-related issues or can’t add files because the hard drive is locked, then the whole use of a hard drive is defeated.

Whether you need to move a few files to another system or want to do a quick backup, it can never hurt to have a few of them around.īut an external hard drive is only convenient when you can use it. No matter your operating system of choice, external hard drives can be useful in many situations.

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