Is it safe to send the iMac to repair

[yeungqeh]

Hi, I am new here.
I need to send my iMac to repair. However, I am worrying that the repair techs may access my files on the harddisk. Is it absolutely safe if I encrypt the home folder with Espionage? Can the Mac repair guy still able to access to the files through some more basic route?
Thanks.

[greg]

Hi yeungqeh, and welcome to the forums!

You cannot encrypt the home folder with Espionage, in fact it is designed explicitly to avoid that sort of excessive mass-encryption. If you want to encrypt your entire home folder, use FileVault instead of Espionage.

Espionage will encrypt individual folders within your Home folder, and for the folders its encrypts the repair guy won't be able to access them. One thing to watch out for though is whether you've set Espionage to use the login keychain or a separate keychain. Make sure that Espionage is set to use its own, separate keychain (you can check this in Espionage's advanced preferences). The repair guy will likely need your user account password, and if you've set Espionage to use the login keychain then they'll be able to access your folders because the login keychain password is the same as your user account password—so just make sure that you're using the Espionage keychain with a password that's different from your login password.

Kind regards,
Greg, Tao Effect

[yeungqeh]

Great. Many Thanks!