macOS 28 Will Drop Support For Encrypted Mac OS Extended Volumes (9to5mac.com) 42
Starting with macOS 28, Apple will no longer support encrypted Mac OS Extended, or HFS+, volumes. Users will need to decrypt them or reformat them as APFS to keep using them. 9to5Mac reports: In a new support document, Apple explains that starting with macOS 28, "the Mac OS Extended file system format will be supported only for volumes (disks and other storage devices) that aren't encrypted." In practice, this means users who currently rely on encrypted HFS+ external drives or other encrypted legacy Mac-formatted volumes will need to "either decrypt or reformat any encrypted Mac OS Extended volumes."
Apple doesn't explain the reason for the change. Still, the move appears to be another step in Apple's transition to APFS, its file system with built-in encryption support, which replaced Mac OS Extended as the default Mac file system in macOS High Sierra. As a result of this change, Apple says that starting with macOS 26, Macs might notify users when they're using an encrypted Mac OS Extended disk that won't be compatible with macOS 28 or later.
According to the support page, "the notification will identify the volume by name." However, Apple says users can manually confirm whether a volume is both using Mac OS Extended format and encrypted by following these steps [...]. Apple adds that "macOS 28 and later will continue to support unencrypted volumes that use Mac OS Extended format," and notes "Mac OS Extended is also known as HFS Plus (or HFS+)."
Apple doesn't explain the reason for the change. Still, the move appears to be another step in Apple's transition to APFS, its file system with built-in encryption support, which replaced Mac OS Extended as the default Mac file system in macOS High Sierra. As a result of this change, Apple says that starting with macOS 26, Macs might notify users when they're using an encrypted Mac OS Extended disk that won't be compatible with macOS 28 or later.
According to the support page, "the notification will identify the volume by name." However, Apple says users can manually confirm whether a volume is both using Mac OS Extended format and encrypted by following these steps [...]. Apple adds that "macOS 28 and later will continue to support unencrypted volumes that use Mac OS Extended format," and notes "Mac OS Extended is also known as HFS Plus (or HFS+)."
Remove Encryption? (Score:1)
What could possibly go wrong?
Apple is becoming more MS every day.
Re:Remove Encryption? (Score:4, Informative)
They're not removing encryption support, they have a modern filesystem that you can use with encryption. They're only dropping it from their deprecated 1990s-era filesystem. They're telling people to move to the modern filesystem if they want to use encrypted drives.
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
They're not removing encryption support
Except they are. That is the one and only thing they are doing. They just aren't removing it from filesystems you care about, and you don't care about other people.
They're only dropping it from their deprecated 1990s-era filesystem.
And yet they are not dropping support for that filesystem without encryption, which is why Apple is literally doing what you said they are not doing. Not only can't you handle more than one button, you also can't handle more than one idea.
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Realistically, it's not that rare to change your secure volumes, or move them between services. Changing from VeraCrypt to KDE Plasma Vaults, or, changi
Re: Remove Encryption? (Score:1)
Can't be maintained? Lol
Re: Remove Encryption? (Score:4, Informative)
There was another project where to use a Microchip radio transceiver, you had to send the data, then wait Xms, then trigger a register, and yada yada yada, which was due to a bug in the transceiver. They fixed that bug ~1 year after, but we had shipped the old boards into production, so for the life of that product there were two radio functions. One to send via the old radio logic, and one that didn't need that junk, but, to update functionality, you had to add it to both functions and work around it.
Luckily that product died mid-COVID, but, I can keep going on of N products with these stupid, idiotic, annoying, but understandable strangeness in them. So my guess is: They want to clean up the code-base, and get it running in a slimmer, cleaner fashion without the bloat.
Re: (Score:2)
switch( media ) {
case floppy:
doFloppyStuff();
break;
case CD:
doCDStuff();
break;
}
(I can't get tabs in there, but you know what it's saying)
They had this one ginormous multi-paged function that interspersed floppy and CD support in the same function. I undertook the rewrite fo
Re: (Score:2)
I've also said multiple times that ~50% of your code should be comments, explain what you're doing, why, what you're thinking,
Re: (Score:1)
Want to talk about ReiserFS?
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RFS is dead. Like his wife.
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They are not. The post being responded to alleged that encryption was being removed, it is not. They are removing an encryption option from one filesystem, encryption still exists and is not removed from MacOS, which was the claim. Otherwise how do you interpret "What could possibly go wrong?" or the follow-up "The N$A got to them, guaranteed." The insinuation is clear.
Still, makes no sense to me.
ceci n'est pas un removing (Score:2)
encryption was being removed, it is not. They are removing an encryption option from one filesystem
so they are removing the encryption but they are not removing it, they are just removing it without any removal happening in the process. got it, thanks for this illuminating clarification.
not that it matters, mind, apparently i'm far too dumb to be an apple user and this sophisticated level of reasoning is way out of my reach.
Re: (Score:2)
The FS itself is likely not being removed because it is one with implementations outside of MacOS (For instance my camera can be hooked to an HFS drive) But HFS Encrypted was always a take-your-life-into-your-own-hands thing. If you got a sector corruption, thats an unrecoverable loss of the whole FS. Whereas unencrypted, it just took a rebuiold of the FAT and you could at least recover the majority. It *highly* unlikely anything other than MacOS supported the encryption.
While its a PITA to lose that suppor
Re: (Score:2)
And yet they are not dropping support for that filesystem without encryption, which is why Apple is literally doing what you said they are not doing.
I cannot mod you up even though I have points, this new /. WEB site really sucks. So I posted, I guess Apple Fanboys are out in force.
This highlights yet another reason to avoid proprietary Operating Systems. People bought these probably overpriced items and encrypted them for a reason, now Apple is saying "TFB, you cannot use the hardware the way you want.". What is next, dropping support for that hardware ?
Yet another reason people should move to Linux or a *BSD.
Re: (Score:2)
What's stopping users from converting the drives from HFS+ encrypted to APFS encrypted? They have a process to do that in-place. People can keep using their existing drives, and can still have them encrypted.
This (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes but no.
They could have left support for old drivers. They're dropping support for the encrypted drivers they used to support.
For your comparison, the thing about encrypted overlays on file systems is that the encrypted overlay works independently. People will move simply by virtue of using a natively-encrypted file system is easier and more convenient than an overlay system. But nothing precludes the use of an overlay if people want to do it themselves.
In this case there is no more support. It's a m
Re: (Score:2)
Legacy systems aren't going to run macOS 28, since the last release to support Intel processors is macOS 26. This will only affect legacy archives, so, older external disks. Assuming they didn't use exFAT, but you didn't get native encryption in macOS with that either.
Re:Remove Encryption? (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that APFS is designed for SSDs. It isn't great for spinny disks, and HFS+ has had a lot of improvements since the HFS/MFS days. It would be nice to have a filesystem with less overhead, especially because APFS doesn't provide any bit rot protection by checksumming.
It would be nice if Apple could "bless" FUSE-t or maybe make some type of IFS that doesn't require kernel extensions and weakening the OS security just so one can use another FS. Or, maybe Apple could offer some filesystems like ext4, xfs or $DEITY willing, OpenZFS. This way, Apple only needs to support a few filesystems, but if someone wants to use ZFS, that option is available.
Other operating systems still work with old filesystems. I can use FAT12 on a Windows Server 2025 machine. I can use the old `ext` or Minix filesystems directly on Linux, and xiafs. If I want to run the original MFS, I will need to jump through a lot of emulation hoops.
Re: (Score:2)
I think Apple should have converted to ZFS in the first place, APFS kind of feels like they decided to re-invent the wheel and missed out on some important stuff (like block checksums) in the process. I still think it's reasonable for them to drop HFS+ encryption support and tell people to convert the drives to APFS if they want to keep doing it, though.
Re: (Score:3)
Get a grip. Anybody who cares about encryption either moved on to APFS long ago or won't be interested in updating to MacOS 28 anyway.
HFS+ is ancient (Score:5, Informative)
HFS+ was introduced with MacOS 8.1 in the late 90s. It doesn't even support dates past the year 2040. It makes sense for them to start phasing it out.
Re: (Score:2)
start phasing it out.
Stopping support of a specific feature but not the entirety of the technology can be part of a phase out strategy rather than a hard cutoff.
Re: (Score:1)
Finding a new encrypted filesystem must be upsetting you.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple's official method is multi-step.
First, you decrypt the volume - you control-click the disk and click Decrypt. Wait for it to decrypt (takes hours).
Then you convert it to APFS, the current filesystem Apple uses.
Then you enable encryption on APFS and wait for it to encrypt.
Chances are the HFS+ encryption is likely outdated and weak and sometimes it's better to not pretend. Or it was a hacked addon to HFS+ which didn't support it initially. Like ho
Future data recovery will be difficult (Score:3)
Disposable (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. Nobody will need to dispose of anything because of this. Either they'll reformat to APFS (which they probably already did if they care about encryption) or simply not upgrade to MacOS 28 when that comes out a couple of years from now. HFS will have been deprecated for a decade by then.
Re: (Score:2)
The step in the "disposable computers" trend was made when it was designed with 32-bit time and date values [wikipedia.org] and doesn't support dates past February 2040. Getting people to switch over to a newer file system that won't just stop working in the future is honestly the opposite of that trend. A feature deprecation about a decade after the release of new tech is pretty mild in narrow Apple golden path.
And because of that narrow path, most people in the ecosystem are going to be pretty unaffected with the 6 to 8
The T2 chip may be the reason (Score:2)
The T2 security chip supports/enables APFS encryption (storing the keys in the secure enclave). HFS+ encryption is not directly supported by the T2 security chip hardware. So, if you want to trust the (Apple ecosystem) encryption, you need to move APFS.
APFS is a well respected (by the experts) file system design. While I wish Apple directly provided and supported Linux and Windows APFS drivers, that was never their responsibility, but there are 3rd party drivers available.
Re: (Score:3)
The T2 security chip supports/enables APFS encryption (storing the keys in the secure enclave). HFS+ encryption is not directly supported by the T2 security chip hardware. So, if you want to trust the (Apple ecosystem) encryption, you need to move APFS.
APFS is a well respected (by the experts) file system design. While I wish Apple directly provided and supported Linux and Windows APFS drivers, that was never their responsibility, but there are 3rd party drivers available.
DING DING DING!!! We have a winner!
That (T2 incompatibility) is exactly the reason! Plus, I wonder if some of that code was never converted/can’t be converted to ARM?
Kinda offtopic but... (Score:1)
Bleagh, (Score:2)
You can get Veracrypt to work with the Mac, via FUSE, but I don't know how safe/robust that is. It's probably more secure than anything Apple has. It's certainly more secure than anything Microspot has.
But, yeah, it's getting extremely irritating that useful stuff is being taken out of commercial OS' and junk put in.