LG G4: How to Enable Encryption

Encryption is key to keeping your personal data as safe and protected as possible and here are the steps for how to enable it on the LG G4.

With all the talk about spying and the warrantless searches going on, it’s no doubt that more and more people are wanting to find out how to encrypt the data on their smartphone and tablet. Encrypting your LG G4 will use a secret key and scramble all of the data that is stored in the phone.

Unless someone has the key then the data is unreadable so if you decide to encrypt your device then be sure to not tell anyone what the password or PIN is.

Speaking of a password or a PIN, Android requires that you have a password or a PIN number security layer chosen before it will encrypt your device. That is because your PIN or password is the key to unscrambling all of the data you have on your phone. I assume this isn’t allowed with the pattern security method because it would be too easy to get around. If you try to encrypt your LG G4 without changing to a PIN or password unlock method first, Android will tell you to change this before you can proceed.

Warning – The only way to decrypt your device after it has been decrypted is by performing a factory reset on the LG G4. Keep this in mind before deciding to encrypt your device.

LG G4 Enable Encryption

  1. Plug In the LG G4 and Charge it to 100%
  2. Leave the Device Plugged In
  3. Launch the Settings Application
  4. Tap on the ‘Security’ Option
  5. Tap on the ‘Encrypt Phone’ Option
  6. Read the Warning
  7. Then Tap on the Encrypt Phone Button at the Bottom

Explanation

Encrypting your phone won’t technically stop the NSA or some other agency from spying on the data that you have going back and forth from your LG G4. Instead, it will stop them from accessing the data if they are in possession of it. Say for example, you get arrested for something and the police confiscate your phone. There have been some court rulings that have allowed the police to search through your phone, without a warrant, if it is not encrypted. This doesn’t mean that they won’t be allowed to do so if it is encrypted. I’m just mentioning this because there is a precedent in both California and Canada.

Some might think this is being paranoid but I would personally rather be safe than sorry. The encrypt option for the LG G4 is inside the security section and be sure to read all the warnings for encrypting your device. If you want to remove this encryption then you’ll have to perform a factory reset. It seems LG has added a way for users to decrypt the data. Thank you Daniel for looking into this. If something happens that interrupts the encryption process then you could lose some or all of your data. For this reason I recommend downloading and installing the LG PC Suite application and backing up as much of your data as possible before proceeding. Nothing bad should happen but again, I would rather be safe than sorry.

The encryption process can take up to an hour depending on how much data you have on your phone already. Please be patient and wait for the process to complete before you try turning it off or unplugging the LG G4 from the charger. Each time you reboot your LG G4, you will be asked to input your encryption PIN/password. This is the same PIN or password that you have set to unlock your LG G4. Android will use that PIN or password as the key to encrypting your device to be sure that you remember it. If you ever forget this PIN or password when you will have to factory reset your phone before you can use it again.

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  1. Hey there!
    Thanks for the article – I just have a question. On my LG G4, I finally got Marshmallow last week, and when I start the encryption, there is no progress screen – all I see is the boot screen.
    Is there a way to know how far the progress is? And is this screen normal? I get freaked out when I can’t see what’s happening!
    Thanks!

    1. Hey there. I don’t think that should be the screen you see. If you look in the article, I show an clip of an image that shows a progress meter. Technically LG could have changed this with Marshmallow, but I’m thinking you should see some sort of progress meter when it’s encrypting

      1. Thanks – it’s very odd… I got bored eventually and pulled the battery, and when I rebooted everything was unchanged. No encryption, but nothing else either – not sure if something blocked it, but I’ll try again when I get more time.
        Thanks again for your help, and article!

          1. Interested to know if anyone solved this issue? Attempts to enable encryption; select Encrypt Phone, Full Encryption. Phone restarts and boots normally, encryption process never starts.. 🙁 LG G4 running MM.

        1. It takes roughly 10 minutes for the progress bar to be displayed. Not sure why, but the phone will reboot and show the vendor screen until it moves on to the progress UI., at which point the progress bar will be 20 or 30% full already.

          I’d be very wary of pulling the battery at this time, because if you wait too long, you could unplug while in the midst of encrypting. This would be bad for your phone 🙂

    2. FWIW I get exactly the same. It reboots, shows the lock screen, and then in Security settings it shows the phone is not encrypted. Although, it encrypted the SD card just fine. BUG??? I’m also on MM, and Sprint.

  2. I encrypted my LG G4 which runs Marshmallow, when I go back into the encryption setting it tells me phone is encrypted. But when I press I get a new screen that says “Decrypt Phone” does this actually work, or a factory reset is only thing that works? I just got curious as I saw that option was available .

    1. I was under the impression that the only way to decrypt the phone would be to do a factory reset. This might just be how it is for AOSP devices(or maybe that is just how it was a while back). I’ll look into this and see if I can find more information about that

          1. You may wan’t to strike this out then

            Warning – The only way to decrypt your device after it has been decrypted is by performing a factory reset on the LG G4. Keep this in mind before deciding to encrypt your device.

        1. Thank you so much for finding this out! The mandatory factory reset was one of the reasons I was hesitant to do it. The other concern I had was will encrypting my phone make it so that I have to have a screen lock on it or will it only be locked upon a reboot? I don’t like having to unlock my screen with a pattern or something every time I take it out of my pocket.

  3. Did anyone ever solve the problem of the LG G4 falling to encrypt? My emploer now requires it in order to access work emails from my phone, but when I try to enable encryption from my system settings the phone just briefly displays a partly pulled-apart Android mascot and immediately reboots to my normal lock screen.

  4. Did anyone figure this out? My LG G4 simply restarts to a normal lock screen when I try to enable encryption. Running Android 6.0, on AT&T, with all the most recent carrier software updates.

  5. Hey I have an issue where did I stop the encryption then suddenly all the files that were made after the day of encryption was corrupted.. How will I retrieve/recover it??

    1. you have to format a phone/sd card if you want to disable encryption. this means the data that was on it is no longer accessible

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