Exchange encrypted files on removable devices

You can use removable devices such as USB flash drives or external hard drives to exchange encrypted files.

To exchange and modify data on removable devices between two parties, both parties must have the appropriate policy and key assigned.

For the exchange between macOS and Windows endpoints, the device should be formatted with FAT32. Other file formats may work with limited functionality. Since the file format cannot be displayed in the Finder, you have to use Disk Utility to check the file system.

If you exchange larger files on removable devices, make sure you have more free space available than twice the largest file size to be exchanged.

On removable devices that are also used for Time Machine backups, the Backups.backupdb directory is excluded from encryption automatically.