How to Disable BitLocker in Windows 11 & 10

Is BitLocker encryption causing unnecessary problems? Follow these simple steps to quickly turn off, remove, or disable BitLocker on any drive in Windows 11 & 10.

Depending on your system, BitLocker might be enabled by default. If not, you can turn on BitLocker with just a couple of clicks. Once enabled, it encrypts your drive with AES 128-bit or AES 256-bit encryption to protect your data from unauthorized use. However, BitLocker can sometimes cause issues. For example, some applications might be incompatible with BitLocker, prevent dual booting, and even cause issues when upgrading Windows. The upgrade problems are especially persistent if you encrypt the C drive manually.

If you no longer want to use BitLocker, you can disable it manually using the Control Panel, Command Prompt, or PowerShell. In this tutorial, I’ll show you these three methods for disabling BitLocker in Windows 11 and 10. Let’s get started.

Good to know: How to auto unlock a BitLocker encrypted drive in Windows 11 & 10

Before You Begin

• Administrator rights are required to change the BitLocker status (enabled/disabled).
• BitLocker password is required to disable it. If you don’t have it, you can use the recovery key to recover the BitLocker encrypted drive.

Disable BitLocker via Control Panel

You can turn off BitLocker directly from the control panel itself. Here’s how.

1. Open the Start menu by pressing the “Windows key”.
2. Type “Control Panel” and press “Enter“.
3. Select “Large icons” from the “View by” dropdown menu.
4. Find and click on the “BitLocker Drive Encryption” option.
5. Find the drive with BitLocker turned on and click on it.
6. Click on the “Turn off BitLocker” option.
7. Type the password when prompted and press Enter.

With that, BitLocker is turned off and the drive is decrypted automatically.

Turn Off BitLocker from Command Prompt

As an alternative, you can turn off BitLocker from Command Prompt. All you need is the drive letter of the drive for which you want to disable the BitLocker. So, make sure to note down the drive letter and follow the below steps.

1. Open the Start menu.
2. Type “Command Prompt” and select “Run as administrator“.
3. In it, run the following command while replacing “X” with the actual drive letter. manage-bde -off X:
4. Type the BitLocker password and press Enter.

Once authenticated, Windows will decrypt the drive and turn off BitLocker. If you have more drives, follow the same steps for all the drives.

Disable BitLocker Using PowerShell

If you’d like to use PowerShell, it too has a dedicated command to quickly disable BitLocker. Here’s how:

1. Press the “Windows key” on your keyboard to open the Start menu.
2. Type “PowerShell” in the Start menu and select “Run as administrator“.
3. Run the following command in it while replacing “X” with the actual drive letter. Disable-BitLocker -MountPoint "X:"
4. Type the BitLocker password when prompted and press “Enter“.

With that, BitLocker is turned off on that specific drive. If you have more drives, follow the same steps for all the drives.

Wrapping Up — Disabling BitLocker in Windows 11 & 10

As you can see, if you want to disable BitLocker, you have three ways—Control Panel, Command Prompt, and PowerShell. For most uses, I recommend following the Control Panel method as it is easy. However, if didn’t work or you are looking for an alternative method, you use the Command Prompt or PowerShell methods. Whichever method you follow, the end result is the same. If you want to verify, you can also manually check if BitLocker is enabled or disabled.

If you want to use BitLocker in the future, you can easily enable BitLocker via Control Panel.

If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to assist.