Unable to encrypt USB thumb drive in Mac OS 26.1

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Level 1

29 points

Unable to encrypt USB thumb drive in Mac OS 26.1

I'm trying to encrypt a USB thumb drive using my MBA running OS 26.1. No option in Disk Utility. I erased and formatted it as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" I wanted to convert using GUID so that I could encrypt it, but that option was not available. I tried converting it to HPFS, but was told I couldn't because it was not in GUID partition. Saw somewhere I should right click on the drive icon and choose "encrypt" but that does not pop up when right-clicked. Any advice? Thanks in advance.

MacBook Air (M4, 2025)

Posted on Nov 12, 2025 3:14 PM

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Answer 1

EddieT Author

Level 1

29 points

Nov 12, 2025 3:22 PM in response to EddieT

Okay, that was weird. I was able to do it, but had to right click the drive icon and then choose "erase". THEN, I was offered the chance to convert to HPFS and encrypt. Did not seem able to do this from Disk Utility, which is weird. Anyway, problem solved.

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Answer 2

Nov 12, 2025 6:25 PM in response to EddieT

Awesome!

If this happens again, you can always try the ‘diskutil’ terminal application which allows low level inferencing of disk devices

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Answer 3

Nov 13, 2025 11:03 AM in response to EddieT

EddieT wrote:

Okay, that was weird. I was able to do it, but had to right click the drive icon and then choose "erase". THEN, I was offered the chance to convert to HPFS and encrypt. Did not seem able to do this from Disk Utility, which is weird. Anyway, problem solved.

IIRC, Tahoe no longer is able to create an encrypted HFS+ volume aka MacOS Extended (Journaled). If you want an encrypted external drive, then you need to erase it as GUID partition and APFS (encrypted) file system.

AFAIK, macOS Tahoe will still unlock & read an encrytped HFS+ volume. The question remains.....for how much longer?

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