Overview
- Apple published a support document Wednesday saying macOS 28 will no longer support encrypted Mac OS Extended (HFS+) volumes and that users must act before upgrading.
- The company says macOS 26 may begin notifying Macs when they detect an encrypted HFS+ disk and the notice will identify the affected volume by name.
- Users can check a drive’s format in Disk Utility where an incompatible volume will show both “Mac OS Extended” and “Encrypted.”
- Apple offers two remediation paths: decrypt the HFS+ volume in place or back up the data and erase the drive to reformat it as APFS or APFS (Encrypted); the company warns decryption can take a long time for large volumes.
- This change follows Apple’s long shift to APFS, the file system with built‑in encryption that became the default in macOS High Sierra, and it raises the risk that older encrypted external drives will stop working unless users back up and convert them first.