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enabling FileVault2 on APFS appears to be instant (no progress for encrypting drive)

In the past (before APFS) I remember that enabling FileVault would take several hours, during which time it said "Encrypting..." with a percentage progress counter in Settings -> Security & Privacy.

So I was surprised just now when I enabled FileVault2 on APFS on macOS Mojave 10.14.5 on a MacBook Air 2018, and it instantly went to "FileVault is turned on for the disk". I even tried to turn it off again, which was instant too. When I then turned it on again, it was also instantly turned on.

How is it possible that this is so fast?

I ran this command:

fdesetup status

which results in:

FileVault is On.

I also ran this command:

diskutil apfs list

and it displays this for the main volume, so it appears to be

+-> Volume disk1s1 [...]

| ---------------------------------------------------

| APFS Volume Disk (Role): disk1s1 (No specific role)

| Name: Macintosh HD (Case-insensitive)

| Mount Point: /

| Capacity Consumed: 37444063232 B (37.4 GB)

| FileVault: Yes (Unlocked)

MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.14

Posted on Jul 10, 2019 11:18 PM

Top-ranking reply

FinTGM

Level 4

1,205 points

Posted on Jul 10, 2019 11:36 PM

I can see that the Original FileVault is activated. When you setup your Mac, FileVault was activated automatically. Follow these steps.

Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Security & Privacy.
Click the FileVault tab.
Click the Lock button, then enter an administrator name and password.
Click Turn Off FileVault.
Restart your Mac.

We don’t know exactly what is going on if this didn’t work but it is a bit ideal for a Apple store visit.

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enabling FileVault2 on APFS appears to be instant (no progress for encrypting drive)

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