Apple removed the ability to encrypt USC-C thumb drives in macOS Catalina?

[SW3029]

I got a new USB-C thumb drive and was going to encrypt it so I can password protect it. However, it appears Apple has removed the encrypted options for USB-C thumb drives from Disk Utility in macOS Catalina (I'm using a 16" MBP. In Disk Utility the only formatting options are:

• Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
• Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
• MS-DOS
• ExFat

It's so weird that they've removed the encrypted options. Unless I'm doing something wrong?

 

[junkw]

if you format it extended then unplug/replug it, are there new options like APFS/APFS encrypted showing up?

 

[SW3029]

if you format it extended then unplug/replug it, are there new options like APFS/APFS encrypted showing up?

No, they aren't. I'm attaching two screenshots.

The first shows the only 4 options I get even after formating as Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) and unplugging/replugging in the drive.

Then In Disk Utility I've also tried going to Edit>Convert to APFS, but I get the following error message on about the drive.

 

[b0fh666]

erase the whole disk and make it GPT not MBR

 

[jdogg836]

I think what gets most people is that Disk Utility now hides everything except the volumes. If you change the view to "View All Devices" and format the actual drive instead of just the existing volume, it should work just fine.

 

[SW3029]

I think what gets most people is that Disk Utility now hides everything except the volumes. If you change the view to "View All Devices" and format the actual drive instead of just the existing volume, it should work just fine.

Yep! This is what the problem was! Thanks!