How to remove/disable BITLOCKER encryption in Windows 11

Bitlocker Encryption is a very secure encryption tool for encrypting volumes on Windows. This 128-bit or 256-bit encryption tool is used by millions of users around the world to protect important information. Enabling BitLocker on a volume is easy, but how do you remove encryption from the volume? Don't worry. It's easy and you can do it quickly by following the steps below.

How to identify a BITLOCKER encrypted drive?

You can easily identify a BitLocker encrypted drive just by looking at it on the File Explorer page.

1. Open File Explorer.

2. Now, just click "This PC" once in the left pane.

3. On the right side you can see all the drives. Look carefully for the roll with the little lock symbol with their name written on it.

A drive with a locked flag is a drive that is encrypted using BitLocker Encryption.

How to remove or disable Bitlocker encryption in Windows?

You just need to know which drive letter your BitLocker-protected drive comes with, and the rest is easy. There are two ways to do this.

Method 1 – Using Terminal

1. You must open Powershell with administrative rights.

2. To do this, press the Windows key and type " powershell " in the search box.

3. Later, just right-click on "Windows PowerShell" from the search and click on "Run as administrator".

#4. When it starts, type or paste this line and press Enter to know the BitLocker encryption status of all drives associated with the system.

管理-bde-状态

Now, a list of drivers with various information will appear on the PowerShell screen.

In this list, please note carefully the "Protection Status: " for each drive. When you see the protection status as "ON", it means that Bitlocker encryption has been activated.

5. Note the drive letter of the volume.

[In our case it is the " F: " drive. ]

6. Then, replace the drive letter in this command with the drive letter you noted down and execute it to disable Bitlocker encryption.

禁用-BitLocker -MountPoint“驱动器号：”

[

You must replace "drive letter" in the code with the drive letter of the volume.

Example - In our example, the drive letter is " F: " and the command is -

禁用-BitLocker -MountPoint " F :"

]

7. Finally, you must start the volume decryption process. Just change the drive letter again and run the code.

manage-bde -off 驱动器号：

[

Replace this "Drive Letter:" again with the actual drive letter of the volume.

Example – If the drive letter is “ F: ”, the command would be –

管理-bde -off F：

]

This will finally start the decryption process. Once done, you can close the command prompt window.

You can now check the status of your drive/volume from File Explorer. The drive won't lock it.

Method 2 – Using Control Panel (BitLocker password required)

You can turn off BitLocker encryption using Control Panel.

1. Bitlocker encryption settings are in the control panel. So, to open it, press the Windows key and the R key simultaneously.

2. Then, enter “ control ” and click “ OK ” to open the control panel.

3. In the control panel page, click on "View" in the side pane and set it to "small icon" to see the full list of options there.

4. Now, click on “ BitLocker Encryption ” to access it.

#5. Here you will see a list of drives encrypted with/without BitLocker.

6. Once you see the drive with the " BitLocker on (Locked) " logo and its name, it will be encrypted.

7. So click on “Unlock Drive” to unlock the drive.

8. Now, a secondary screen will pop up requesting the BitLocker key.

9. Type the key and click "Unlock" to unlock the volume.

#10. This decryption process will take several minutes, depending on the size of the drive and the type of drive.

Wait until it completes. BitLocker is now removed from your volume. Open File Explorer and see if BitLocker encryption was removed.

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