What is file vault encryption?

When iOS 10 updated Yosemite today it required me to re-login to iCloud. It asked if I want to use FileVault encryption disk. What is that and why would I want to use it?

FileVault is Whole Disk Encryption.
When your Mac is powered off, the disk cannot be booted without knowing your password, the disk cannot be removed from the Mac and read on another system without your password. The disk cannot be taking into a lab and dissected to read your data without your password.

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Are my File Vault encrypted files backed up with Time Machine still useful?

The background:
My iMac G5 crashed. It all started one and a half years ago when my screen popped and the frequent hard shutdowns pobably damaged my HDD (the one elegant solution Windows have is the Windows button: press + 'u' + return = proper shutdown). After that episode I bought an external drive and started a Time Machine backup routine. What I did not realize, was the issues surrounding the use of TM with a File Vault encrypted system. In 2007 when I bought my G5, I poked around, getting myself familiarized in Mac OS X and found this thing called File Vault. It looked like something useful and I started using it. Later I upgraded my OS and after my screen problem, decided to make use of Time Machine. The one problem with Mac OS X is the ease of use. It's so easy that Apple probably cannot foresee all the dumb things we users are going to do with it, including a warning to first time TM users who have their system already encrypted with FV. Now, after searching the forums, I see the problems and the warnings. If someone use TM and then decide to use FV, a warning pops up, but not the other way around! At least, I never saw it coming. If there is such a warning, I probably did not read it - as I say, it all happens so easy and work so well, it's easy to use a Mac without reading the instructions. Yes, I did some dumb things, but that's probably because I'm not so dumb; too relaxed, yes. At least, so it seems to me : )
My problem:
Two weeks ago, my G5 suddenly started giving problems. Out of the blue I couldn't open Adobe Bridge. At first I thought it was a software problem and tried re-installing Bridge and searched the Adobe forums for a solution. After a long struggle trying different solutions, I eventually booted with my install disk and with Disk Utility found that there is a problem with my internal HDD. Only then it dawned on me that my problem is far more serious than a software problem but by then it was too late. I couldn't repair the HDD with DU and got an instruction to restore my system with a backup. No problem! I hooked up my external HD and pressed the button. The restoration took over 12 hours to complete. That in itself showed my that I have a big problem, but I did not dare interrupt the process. In the end I got a window with a 'Restart System' button. All I got from that was a white screen with a spinning wheel and that's where I am now. Needless to say, my G5 is now getting repaired.
My solution:
I have to keep going so I used my savings to buy another Mac. I have my backups, so I'll just do a Migration and keep working. Or so I thought. When I tried it, it obviously failed because I sit with encrypted backups that would only restore to the original machine - which crashed! After reading about it on the forums, it dawned on me that it is, most probably, a futile exercise. My backups are, most probably, no backups at all, because I also did not realize that I had to 'log out' of my FV to get TM to properly backup my files! In never dawned on me that I should log out! I have one machine at home and have no particular reason to log out at all!
My question:
Am I wasting my time with the 'backups' I have? Should I wait for my G5 to get back from the shop and see if they are useful, of should I just move on and try to live the rest of my life without all the electronic data I lost?

Gorrelduik wrote:
But they missed one situation: if Time Machine is set up, but auto backups are turned OFF, there's no message. If you turn it back on, there's no message then, either.
. . . and that's exactly my MO! I still don't have auto backup turned on. If it's better to use auto backup I'll do it, but to my mind it's better not to have both my computer and my backup disk on all the time. What happens when there is a power failure or lightning strike and both are on and both get damaged? My MO is to make a manual backup once a day and then put the external HDD away.
That's one of the reasons not to rely on a single backup, no matter where it is or how it was made. All hardware fails, sooner or later, no backup app is perfect, and things like lightning, fire, flood, and theft happen, too.
With a desktop Mac (and a U.P.S. system that both the Mac and External HD are on), you can let TM do it's hourly backups (although that won't help a lot with the current incarnation of File Vault), then keep secondary backups on a separate HD, perhaps a portable one, with a different app. See #27 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum), for some suggestions.
I have thought of doing another weekly backup on a different external HD that I keep at the office, but I'm still procrastinating that one. Now that I think about it, does Time Machine cater for that: having two backup routines on two different HDD's?
You can do that, but you must tell Time Machine each time you want to "swap" drives. But each will be complete and independent.

Time Machine restore of File Vault encrypted user failed: Login failed due to an error.

Hello everyone,
I did regular time machine backups of a File Vault (version one) encrypted user folder. Now I needed to restore a few files that have been deleted unintentionally. Since single files can't be restored from a File Vault encrypted backup time machine told me that I must restore a complete backup from a certain time. I did that. Time machine quited to copy at about 25 percent and rebooted. Everything was looking good until I entered my password for the recovered user. Then I got the answer:
"Logging in to the account failed because an error occurred"
And now?
I tried to restore some other backups, none was working. I copied the relevant .sparsebundle file out of the backup folders and tried to mount it. Didn't work. It says "not recognized". Then changed it's owner to root and tried again, the same answer. I tried to repair it by using hdiutil but it also says "attach failed - not recognized".
Apple, I am asking you: Are my data lost?
Anyone, please provide help.
(Apple, it's more than a shame what you are providing for the safety of a user's data!)

Try Repairing the backups, per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If/when you get this sorted out, strongly consider switching to File Vault 2. It works much better, especially with Time Machine.
Or, if possible, only encrypting a few sensitive items, per Protecting confidential documents in a secure disk image.
Message was edited by: Pondini

What is file vault and should i turn it on??

What is file vault and shuld i use it?

It basically is a system that encrypts your hard drive, making it more secure. It basically makes it so if your laptop is stolen and the thief wants to access files, they won't be able to just take out the HD and put it in another computer.
It really is not necessary unless you are working with files that are very confidential.

File Vault encryption

File Vault encryption is stuck on Pause on intial start up of machine

Back up all data before proceeding. There are ways to back up a computer that isn't fully functional. Ask if you need guidance.
Start up in Recovery mode. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select Disk Utility.
In the Disk Utility window, select the icon of the startup volume from the list on the left. It will be nested below another disk icon, usually with the same name. Click the Unlock button in the toolbar. When prompted, enter the login password of a user authorized to unlock the volume, or the alternate decryption key that was generated when you activated FileVault.
Then, from the menu bar, select
File ▹ Turn Off Encryption
Enter the password again.
You can then restart as usual, if the system is working. Decryption will be completed in the background. It may take several hours, and during that time performance will be reduced.
If you can't turn off encryption in Disk Utility because the menu item is grayed out, you'll have to erase the volume and then restore the data from a backup. Select the Erase tab, and then select
Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
from the Format menu.
You can then quit to be returned to the main Recovery screen. Follow these instructions if you back up with Time Machine. If you use other backup software, follow its developer's instructions.
Don't erase the volume unless you have at least two complete, independent backups. One is not enough to be safe.

TC Won't Back Up Due to File Vault Encryption

I have just set up my Time Capsule to do a first back up using Time Machine however the back up won't work due to the drive being encrypted due to File Vault being switched on. When I switch File Vault off in Preferences an error message appears stating that I have insufficient space on my Disk to enable File Vault to be switched off and that I need to free up 138GB. It goes on to say that I should empty the trash and delete unwanted files. I have done this but I'm no where near freeing up 138GB The whole of the HDD is 250GB therefore I'm not sure I can delete such a huge amount of data without deleting something important by mistake.
Can any one help?

Thank you for your explanation. Well, I will decide later today (it is now 2:43 Sunday ayem) whether I will unlock FileVault. I am not convinced of its usefulness to me in my own home environment. I fortunately just purchased a WD Firewire drive (One TB) and have room to copy some of my files so FV can do its unlocking. I trust that then I will be able to use - not Time Capsule - but Time Machine (love those names). I discovered - through exploration of the WD backup volume - that earlier formatting of the WD drive left me with really very little backed up on the FW volume. And none of my precious Apple Lossless audio files! Having then reformatted the volume with Disk Utility, I began to backup until I received the alert about FV. So glad to find out here on this Apple site about the problems with FileVault, and some opinions about the utility of Time Machine. Personally, for those like me who may really need true archives of previous work, Time Machine is excellent, although I must note that the workarounds needed to get what I want from it are sometimes nothing short of onerous. I am learning more daily, and if history is my guide, that process will continue to the end of my days! Thanks so much for the help provided.

Time Machine not backing up File Vault encrypted iMac

I recently turned on File Vault and performed backups to my Time Capsule via Time Machine. Although slow it did back up several times. However because of it being slow I followed some advice which said to restart my iMac in Safe Mode and then do a normal restart,which should then speed up the back up process. Well, I did this and it did not make any difference other than now it gets to the end of the back up and starts again, with about completing backup!
So, I'm thinking is it because of File Vault, or is there something else I can do to make sure of being able to perform a backup via Time Machine. I am currently using Lion 10.7.5.
I assume that the backup (if it ever does another one) will also be encrypted as the option in Time Machine to encrypt is greyed out. Any thoughts here?
I thought maybe I should turn File Vault off and try again, but that sort of misses the point if I want to protect my data.
Help please.
Much appreciated - Alani

Alani wrote:
I recently turned on File Vault and performed backups to my Time Capsule via Time Machine. Although slow it did back up several times. However because of it being slow I followed some advice which said to restart my iMac in Safe Mode and then do a normal restart,which should then speed up the back up process. Well, I did this and it did not make any difference other than now it gets to the end of the back up and starts again, with about completing backup!
Does it fail, with a message? If so, what message? If you don't remember, see #C2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
If not, a clue may be lurking in your logs. Use the widget in #A1 of the same link to display the backup messages from your logs. Locate the backup in question, then copy and post all the messages here.
Is it any faster if you connect via an Ethernet cable, instead of wirelessly?
I assume that the backup (if it ever does another one) will also be encrypted as the option in Time Machine to encrypt is greyed out. Any thoughts here?
No. Mountain Lion can encrypt network backups, but Time Machine on Lion can only encrypt backups made to a local or directly-connected external HD.
I thought maybe I should turn File Vault off and try again, but that sort of misses the point if I want to protect my data
No, that will take a very long time and won't make any difference anyway.

Mount File Vault Encrypted Disk on a PPC

Hello,
My problem is the following. I have two Macs.
A) MacBook Pro i5, running OS X 10.7
B) Quicksilver G4, running OS X 10.5
The machine A has File Vault 2 full disk encryption turned on. I know the key. I would like to boot machine A in firewire target disk mode and access the information on the encrypted volume from machine B.
Opening Disk Utility on machine B, I can see the encrypted volume as "disk3s2", but am unable to mount it. Any solution ?
Help greatly appreciated !

The thing is, what started my problem is that the screen on machine A broke. It won't light up on boot. So, I can't decrypt the volume in the current situation. I will probably need to get it fixed or borrow an other Mac capable of running Lion.
But in the mean time, there might be a way to access my information. All I need is a backport of the CoreStorage technology and a command like "diskutil cs mount disk3s2".
I'm out of luck ?

File Vault encryption locked up. No progress for 24 hrs. If I restore from a non-encypted back-up will this cause problems?

Started file vault yesterday and no progress for 24 hrs. If I do a Command-R restore from a non-encrypted back-up will this cause problems?

You first must repartition and reformat the drive before restoring your backup.
Install or Reinstall OS X from Scratch
Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
Erase the hard drive:
1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the
      left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on
      the Security button and set the Zero Data option to one-pass. Click on
      the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall OS X: Select Reinstall OS X and click on the Install button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
           because it is three times faster than wireless.
This should install the version of OS X that you had installed.

What is File Vault?

HI! when i first got my ibook i saw that file vault protected my files and decided i should use it...Now, im not sure how filevault really operates or how it protects me and my files. Im the only user on my laptop and im a student. So... should i even have filevault enabled at all? Basically i just want to know how filevault works and if i need it on or not. Thanks in Advance!
-Seth

Be aware that FileVault, even though it runs transparently, does eat up extra CPU cycles, and does slow down your computer to a degree. It is up to the individual to determine if they require that much security.
From the Help files:
Mac OS X includes FileVault, which allows you to encrypt the information in your home folder. FileVault creates a separate volume for your home folder and encrypts the contents of it. The data in your home folder is encoded and your information is secure if your computer is lost or stolen. FileVault uses the latest government-approved encryption standard, the Advanced Encryption Standard with 128-bit keys (AES-128).
When you turn on FileVault, you also set up a master password for the computer that you or an administrator can use if you forget your regular login password.
WARNING: If you turn on FileVault and then forget both your login password and your master password, you will not be able to log in to your account and your data will be lost forever.
If the information on your computer is of a sensitive nature, you should consider using FileVault. For example, if you carry all your company's financial data on your PowerBook, losing your PowerBook could allow someone else access to sensitive data that might hurt your business. If you are logged out of your account when your PowerBook is lost, and FileVault is turned on, your information is safe.
Since you home folder is encrypted, some tasks that normally access your home folder may be prevented, for example: backup utilities may see your home folder as one folder that's always changing, and this could slow down your backup. Also, if you're not logged in to your computer, other users will not have access to shared folders in your home folder

Trying to destroy File Vault encryption key once Sleep mode kicks in

I've just enabled File Vault in OS X 10.10 and I understand that this protects the drive when the system is shut down but a vulnerability remains when the system is in sleep or standby/hibernate mode (as the encryption key remains in RAM until the system is shut down). After some research, it appears that the following command combination in Terminal is supposed to 1) destroy the key once the system goes into standby/hibernate mode, and 2) shorten the sleep state time before the system moves to standby/hibernate mode to only 10 seconds:
sudo pmset -a destroyfvkeyonstandby 1
sudo pmset a- standbydelay 10
However, after doing this, rebooting and testing, I'm not seeing any evidence this is working as desired. When I run this command:
pmset -g
Terminal shows "DestroyFVKeyOnStandby 1" and "Standbydelay 10," which seems to indicate the desired settings are in place. However, when I put the system in sleep mode, wait a few minutes and power it back up, I'm not getting a separate File Vault PW requirement (just my standard user PW required input) and I'm not seeing any delay at all in returning to awake status (I understand that the decryption process should introduce a delay).
I'm not sure if Yosemite has rendered these commands obsolete or if I'm missing something else. Can anyone help? Thanks much.

Any thoughts on this?

I can't migrate to my retina macbook pro because my backup disk user has file vault encryption

I did everything I was supposed to. Backed up my macbook pro to a bootable hard drive using Super Duper. I just got my new Retina MacBook Pro today and tried to use the Migration Assistant to transfer my data over and it says I can't transfer any data because I was using File Vault on my old machine. Now What???
File Vault has caused me nothing but problems since day one. I wish I never would have turned it on to begin with. It's like Hotel California. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.....ugh.

I was on the phone with apple support and figured out part of the problem. Super Duper created a disc image on my external HD that I needed to double click on AFTER booting up the MBP from the internal HD. This mounts the disc image, allowing me to access the data on the drive. I'm currently manually copying/pasting all my data from the File Vaulted partition to a second partition (that's not file vault protected). From there, I will try to use migration assistant to see if that does the trick...

I am having a problem installing File Vault. Encryption goes halfway

I am having a problem with File Vault encryption. Halfway through encryption I receive an error message stating that there is a problem with the encryption thus halting the process. When I try to restart the process I keep receiving a messsage saying that I cannot turn on File Vault without restarting the computer giving me the impression that I will never be able to use File Vault.

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Scroll back in the log to the time you noted above. Select any messages timestamped from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first. Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message (command-V).
When posting a log extract, be selective. In most cases, a few dozen lines are more than enough.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Important: Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

Why is File Vault is useful?

I have File Vault but do not understand it or its usefulness. Can I deactivate it and if so what happens?
Why is File Vault useful?
Thanks.

File Vault 2 was the only incentive for me to upgrade to Lion, since it's not natively supported in Snow Leopard. Our company requires encryption of sensitive data, so I created a separate partition and used the disk utility command
diskutil cs convert diskN -passphrase (the partition identification "diskxsy" is provided in Disk Utility via the Info command in the menu bar)
to encrypt the new volume, which can now be accessed seamlessly from within Lion. I didn't encrypt my home folder, however, since my configuration (SSD OptiBay & HDD for storage) isn't currently supported. The link below discusses this issue and provides a fix, but I'm hoping a future Lion update will support File Vault encryption of home directories located on system-external drives (which is often the case for MacBook Air users).
https://github.com/jridgewell/unlock

How to kill secure erase after turning on File Vault?

I turned on file vault on my MacBook with OS 10.6.4 and selected the secure erase option for the resulting empty space. The File Vault encryption process completed fairly quickly, but the secure erase has carried on for 48 hours and I'm just at 26% complete as per the security pane of System Preferences.
I'd like to stop the secure erase process. It seems like overkill, and as this computer (and the hard disk) are 4+ years old, I'm thinking the wear and tear on the drive is more than is necessary.
I've tried killing the secure erase process ("sudo kill -9 ...") but the process re-spawns.
My question: is there a safe way to stop the secure erase process after turning on File Vault? (I am fully backed up with Time Machine if that makes any difference.)

Ah-HA! OK, I've fixed the problem the right way now instead of the ugly method of renaming secure_erase, which was admittedly a hack until I had more time to look at things.
The queue for secure_erase is stored in /var/db/fvsecureerase.jobs/ - you need to cd into that directory and look for the files there, and remove them. By deleting the numbered job, you will remove it from the secure_erase queue.
HOWEVER, please look at the files first and then manually delete the file path listed, otherwise you will leave those to-be-destroyed files UNDELETED. This is probably NOT what you want. What happens is that secure_erase moves the "original" files into a new directory (in my case the file was named /Users/jtodd.10307331336706142097) and then secure_erase does it's magic on that directory and wipes out each file in a tedious, secure way. If you made a mistake and don't want to wait the 20 days for it to finish the tedious method, you can just "rm" it the old fashioned way. I typically pipe "yes" into the "rm -R" command since there are a lot of strange permissions things that rm asks about and I would otherwise spend an hour hitting "y" on every file about which it uncertain - hooray for UNIX pipes! For instance, this is a what I did (again, as root):
sh-3.2# cd /var/db/fvsecureerase.jobs
sh-3.2# ls -lsa
total 8
0 drwx------ 3 root admin 102 Nov 12 11:44 .
0 drwxr-xr-x 51 root wheel 1734 Nov 12 11:44 ..
8 -rw-r--r--@ 1 root admin 33 Nov 10 13:53 501
sh-3.2# cat 501
/Users/jtodd.10307331336706142097
sh-3.2# rm 501
sh-3.2# yes|rm -R /Users/jtodd.10307331336706142097

What is file vault encryption?

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