FileVault Encryption in no time on MacBook Pro M3

Hi Community,


I have activated FileVault on my new MacBook Pro M3. Have seen a process bar saying "Calculate time..." (or similar) for approximately 3-5 seconds. Afterwards it said that is activated.


I'm a bit unsure. Of course I would be happy, if the M3 is that fast. But I've around 700 GB on my harddisk. Is it really done?


How could I ensure, that the encryption is ready and working? I have found two terminal commands, which ends which are contradictory:


# diskutil apfs list | grep 'Encrypted'
    |   Encrypted:                 No

# fdesetup status
FileVault is On.


Thanks a lot

Martin

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 14.3

Posted on Jan 27, 2024 1:19 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 27, 2024 1:27 PM

It is that fast because your data was already encrypted before you turned on FileVault. See the information in Protect data on your Mac with FileVault - Apple Support including the following:


If you have a Mac with Apple silicon or an Apple T2 Security Chip, your data is encrypted automatically. Turning on FileVault provides an extra layer of security by keeping someone from decrypting or getting access to your data without entering your login password. If you use a Mac that doesn’t have Apple silicon or the T2 chip, you need to turn on FileVault to encrypt your data.

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4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 27, 2024 1:27 PM in response to Martin_Cologne

It is that fast because your data was already encrypted before you turned on FileVault. See the information in Protect data on your Mac with FileVault - Apple Support including the following:


If you have a Mac with Apple silicon or an Apple T2 Security Chip, your data is encrypted automatically. Turning on FileVault provides an extra layer of security by keeping someone from decrypting or getting access to your data without entering your login password. If you use a Mac that doesn’t have Apple silicon or the T2 chip, you need to turn on FileVault to encrypt your data.

Jan 28, 2024 1:28 PM in response to Martin_Cologne

You won't notice any difference until you try to boot into Recovery Mode or boot from an external drive. When you boot to either of these, you will be presented with a request to authenticate....this is actually asking to authenticate in order to unlock Filevault even though Apple doesn't make this clear at all. Otherwise you won't see any difference while using the Apple Silicon Mac.


Just make sure to have frequent and regular backups of your computer and all external media (including the cloud) which contains important & unique data. There are a lot of new ways to permanently lose access to the data on your internal boot drive these days due to all the new hardware, software, and security changes. Backups have never been more important.

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FileVault Encryption in no time on MacBook Pro M3

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