How to encrypt your hard drive in OS X Yosemite, Mavericks

Encrypting the information on our mobile phones, USB drives , or local hard drives is often necessary, depending on our activities, of course. Personally, I'm not obsessed with security, but I take some good enough precautions to ensure everything is in order.

What we'll see now is an easy way to encrypt the data on our hard drive in OS X Yosemite and even in Mavericks.

The procedure works for both internal and external hard drives ; generally, the latter require this level of protection when being transported from one place to another to prevent another user from accessing the information in case of loss.

The first thing you should do is back up your information before making any changes.

Now open Finder and select " Computer ". There you'll see the drives on your computer, so right-click and select the option to encrypt that particular drive. It must be formatted as HFS+.

Next, we'll enter the password you'll use to protect and encrypt your data. If you forget this code or password, you won't be able to recover your information. Make sure you enter it correctly; you'll need to enter it twice and add a hint to help you remember it.

You click the " encrypt " button and wait for the process to finish. The time it takes depends on how much space is used on your drive. The advantage of this native OS X feature is that you can work on your drive while the process is running.

Now, the process to decrypt the data is the same. Go to Finder , select " Computer ," and then the encrypted drive. Right-click again, and you'll see the " Decrypt " option. This is where you need to enter the password you used previously.