The Apple Support Community will permanently close on November 20, 2026. Starting today, the site will no longer accept new posts and is available in a read-only state.
You can continue to find trusted guidance and support on the official Apple Support site.
We want to thank the community members who have contributed their time and expertise to help others with their Apple products.
The Apple Support Community will permanently close on November 20, 2026. Starting today, the site will no longer accept new posts and is available in a read-only state.
You can continue to find trusted guidance and support on the official Apple Support site.
We want to thank the community members who have contributed their time and expertise to help others with their Apple products.
Hi,
I'm re-formatting an external drive on a macbook M1 (ventura) & I notice that the option to format MacOS (journaled, extended or encrypted) isn't available. It only allows that with AFPS, which I don't want to use as I have another older mac that I also want to use the drive with.
Any ideas or other ways that don't use third party software to encrypt the drive so it needs a password to access?
Thanks.
Use the older Mac to format the drive. Ventura cannot create a CoreStorage device which is required for encrypting an HFS+ file system.
It can still use the drive, it just cannot create it.
Use the older Mac to format the drive. Ventura cannot create a CoreStorage device which is required for encrypting an HFS+ file system.
It can still use the drive, it just cannot create it.
The links below from Apple should provide insights and methods to format an External Drive
Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support (CA)
File system formats available in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support (CA)
Encrypt and protect a storage device with a password in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support (CA)
formatting external drive on M1 mac doesn't have MacOS with encryption
