To keep the data on the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge safe, Samsung gives us the ability to encrypt the SD card and today I want to show you how to do it.
Security is becoming a big topic of conversation as of late. Apple and the FBI have made waves across the technology industry with their recent encryption issue and for good reason too. No matter which side of the fence you stand on about the Apple debate, you probably want to keep your personal data as secure as possible.
Now, the internal storage of your Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge is automatically encrypted so there’s no need to worry about. However, the data on your SD card(assuming you use one) is not encrypted by default.
Samsung most likely did not enable this feature by default because of performance benchmarks. This isn’t to say that if you encrypted the data on your SD card then file transfers will slow to a crawl. Then again, it certainly might. It all depends on the quality of the SD card that you’re using. A lot of people choose to skimp out when it comes to SD cards because it is mainly used for music and videos that can easily be synced again and replaced. If you’re using the SD card from a reputable company like Samsung or SanDisk then you’re most likely okay in the performance department.
I do want to note though, if you encrypt the data on the SD card in the Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge, then you cannot access that data on any other device. You’ll see this information before you actually encrypt the Galaxy S7 SD card, but I just want to make sure you understand this before you proceed.
Galaxy S7 Encrypt SD Card
- Launch the Settings Application
- Scroll Down and Tap on the ‘Lock Screen and Security’ Option
- Scroll Down and Tap on the ‘Encrypt SD Card’ Option
- Then Tap on the ‘Encrypt SD Card’ Button at the Bottom
Explanation
Most people are either really pro-encryption or they are against it. I’m not here to convince you one way or the other though. My goal is to introduce you to this specific feature so you know about it and you have the option to enable it if you want to. As mentioned above, please make sure that you understand encrypting the SD card means you cannot access the data on the SD card from other devices. So, if you like to keep all of your music on your SD card so you can swap it out from device to device then do not encrypt the SD card. If you’re ready to take the plunge though, then head into the Settings application on your Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.
You’ll want to scroll down and tap on the Lock Screen and Security option and then from here, scroll down and tap on the Encrypt SD Card option that you see in this menu. You’ll probably want to read the warning/information here, but it’s basically what I’ve already told you. When you’re ready, go ahead and tap on the Encrypt SD Card button that is at the bottom of the screen and let the Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge do its thing. The amount of time that it takes to encrypt the Galaxy S7 SD card will depend entirely on how much data you have on it.
Once it’s done, you’ll be told that the process is complete and then you can go about your business. Now, you can take the SD card out of the device and put it back in at any time in the future. This will still keep all of your data accessible on the Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge(the same S7/S7 Edge you encrypted it with). You just can’t access the data on another phone, tablet, PC or any other device that accepts microSD cards.
You should also know that if you ever do a factory reset on the Galaxy S7, you’ll be unable to access the data on the SD card. This doesn’t mean the SD card is useless(you can format it), it just means the data stored on it cannot be accessed.
