Can I just move files from a filevaulted volume?

[Bradamante]

Hi MacRumors,

a friend of mine has an old MBP 13". We want to replace the internal 2,5" HD with an SSD. Currently he has Mojave 10.14.4 installed and FileVault activated. Thing is that I have never worked with a "filevaulted" volume before. The plan would be to install macOS fresh on the SSD, use the HD as an external drive and copy over the files manually.

But ... how does the filevaulted, once-a-boot-volume HD even behave? Can I just copy files? Do I have to enter a password? Should I deactivate FileVault before removing the HD?

 

[Project Alice]

It'll just ask for the password when you try to mount it. No different than formatting a drive with encryption (which is all filevault does).

 

[Bradamante]

Oh ok that's good news. Should be an easy operation then.