How to Unlock and Open BitLocker Encrypted Drive on Mac

By default, a drive encrypted with Windows BitLocker cannot be read by Mac computer. When you insert a BitLocker Encrypted drive to a macOS computer, the drive will be not readable and macOS doesn't offer any way to unlock and open BitLocker encrypted drive. It is because that BitLocker is developed by Microsoft for the Windows operating system but it isn't supported by macOS. So, a question arises: "how to unlock and open a BitLocker encrypted drive on Mac computer?". In this tutorial, we will walk you through two effective methods to unlock and open BitLocker encrypted drive on Mac.

Method 1: Unlock and Open BitLocker encrypted drive on Mac with a third-party tool

If you need to open the files or folders in the BitLocker drive on Mac computer, it would be better for you to unlock the BitLocker drive with a useful third-party tool. Here I would like to recommend BitLocker Genius, which enables you to safely unlock and open BitLocker encrypted drives on macOS or OS X. Here are the detailed steps to unlock BitLocker encrypted drive on Mac with a third-party tool.

Step 1: First of all, download BitLocker Genius and install it on your Mac computer.

Step 2: Insert the BitLocker encrypted drive to your Mac computer and then run the BitLocker Genius software.

Note: A warning window may prompt that "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" after you insert the BitLocker encrypted drive into the Mac computer. Just click Ignore button to continue.

Step 3: After that you will see a BitLocker encrypted drive appears on the app interface, select it (marked with "bitlocker") and click Unlock button.

Step 4: Then type your password on the popup window and click Mount button.

Alternatively, if you have a BitLocker recovery key file on your Mac computer, you can use it to unlock the drive: Firstly, check the checkbox of Use key file. Then click Open button to add the recovery key. Finally, click Mount button.

Step 5: Wait for a while and the Bitlocker encrypted disk will be unlocked successfully and you can find it on the desktop. Then you can open and use the drive as it were native hard drive on Mac computer.

Step 6: When all the works are done, click Eject button to safely eject it from the Mac computer.

Download: BitLocker Genius

Method 2: Unlock and Open BitLocker encrypted drive on Mac by formatting

If you have backed up the data and just need to remove the BitLocker password from drive so that it can be used on Mac computer, it will be also a good choice to format the drive directly. Here are detailed steps.

Step 1: Open the Disk Utility.

Step 2: Click the BitLocker encrypted drive on the left panel and click Erase button.

Step 3: When a window pops up, select the format type as you like and then click Erase button. Finally, you will get a brand-new hard drive as you just got it.