Forgot password to FileVault. Still got access to the machine

Question

I just realized, that few months ago I converted my disk to FileVault. I am afraid of loosing access to my data. I still have access to the machine: login, password, administrator account.

Is there something I can do to protect myself against loosing data? Like burning the key-cd in Windows?

Answer 1

The only things that can decrypt a FileVault volume are

1. the passwords to your user accounts that you gave access during FileVault setup, and
2. the recovery key (24 characters) that you received (and should have written down) during FileVault setup.

If you no longer have the recovery key, and you're concerned about forgetting/losing your account password, you can go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > FileVault and click Enable Users... to allow more user accounts to decrypt the volume.

Alternatively, if you don't want other accounts to have that ability, you can disable and then re-enable FileVault to get a new recovery key (but that may take a long time).