Lagos is safe. None of which means your Mac, if taken, would not give complete access to everything: emails, documents, banking details saved in Safari, photos, contacts. Everything. FileVault prevents this entirely, at no cost, with no ongoing maintenance, and with effectively zero performance impact on modern Macs.
What FileVault Is
Apple's full-disk encryption system. When enabled, it encrypts the entire drive using XTS-AES-128 — the same standard used by governments and financial institutions. Without your password or recovery key, the drive is mathematically unreadable. Not difficult. Unreadable.
Is It On Right Now?
System Settings → Privacy & Security → FileVault. If it says Off, turn it on now. It asks for your login password and offers a recovery key. Save the recovery key somewhere safe — printed, in a drawer, not on your Mac. The encryption runs in the background while you use your Mac normally.
The Recovery Key — Do Not Lose This
If you forget your Mac password and lose your recovery key, the data is gone. Not difficult to recover. Gone. This is the design, and also the point. Print it. Put it somewhere safe.
What FileVault Does Not Do
It protects data at rest — when the drive is not actively in use. Once your Mac is logged in, your data is accessible in the normal way. FileVault does not back up your data. FileVault and Time Machine are complementary: one protects against theft, the other against loss.
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