In the format list box select exfat, enter a volume label if you want, then click erase. Go to the applications folder on your macs hard drive, then. Mac computer has a builtin utility called disk utility, which can be used to format any storage device. How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows. Click here for instructions to format with mac solution 2 format in ntfs warning. In fact, there are significant differences informatting the flash drive in the windows operating system and in the apple product. How to format usb flash drive to ntfs, exfat or fat32. How to format a write protected usb flash drive in 2019. Formatting the device as ntfs will make it unwriteable on a mac computer.
Under file system box, select exfat for this drive. Format usb drive, external hard drive on macos catalina. Free tool to format usb to exfat from fat32 or ntfs in windows 7810. How to create a bootable installer for macos apple support. Note that this has a slightly archaic method of installation. Want to be on the cutting edge of the future and enjoy using usb typec. After that, go ahead and launch the finder and click on your flash drive detected by your mac. Make sure that it has at least 12gb of available storage and is formatted as mac os extended. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. Its exactly the same procedure if you need to reformat a flash drive on a mac. How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility in macos high sierra. Simply connect the device, select the drive and a formatting option, and click format. This is the easiest way and simply requires you to plug in your usb drive, open the windows file explorer and right click your drive to view a number of actions that you can perform.
Open terminal, which is in the utilities folder of your applications folder. Rightclick on the drive you want to format, click on format. How to format a flash drive on a mac demonstration. Enter a name for the disk or volume, such as macintosh hd. Nevertheless the settings are responsible for the performance of the usb flash drive. How to format your usb drive with exfat in windows 7810. To format a flash drive on a mac, plug in the drive and open the applications folder, the utilities folder and then disk utility. Three ways to format usb flash drive, external hard drive on macos catalina. The overwhelming majority of usb flash drives you buy are going to come in one of two formats. In the format partition section, select the file system. On the left side of the window are the drives connected to the computer. How to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows.
Do these steps and you will then be able to format your flash drive on your mac. Your flash drive should be listed in the left menu. Transferring a 4gb or larger file to a usb flash drive or. Select the capacity of the drive respective to the one containing the device you wish to format then click the erase tab. Luckily sandisk offers 256gb ultra dual usbc drive, which contains plenty of storage while allowing you to use a newer macbook without dongles.
Many computer users who use a removable flash drive have the demand for formatting it to the fat32 file system. Rightclick on the flash drive or memory card, then select format. You can format the drive from either the mac or the windows machine. Connect your drive to a free usb port on your xbox one. The external drive should be automatically detected and will prompt you to format the drive or keep it. Click the erase button or tab, then complete these fields. Back on the computer i reformated the thumb drive to fat32 which is what it was then recopied the music and in the car all the old files are still there. Learn how to format usb flash drive using cmd in windows 10, 8 and 7. If you want to use the drive between a windows and mac machine, you can format it to fat32. There are many tools can help you format usb flash drive, portable hard drive, memory card or other storage device on macos catalina. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. You can also open a finder window, select applications in the sidebar, and head to utilities. Intended for older windows systems windows xp to windows 7, the kingston format utility is ideal for usb flash devices from kingston. If you want to partition your flash drive on your mac, then you will be glad to know that it is possible.
Type or paste one of the following commands in terminal. Usb flash drive format tool free download and software. How to format usb flash drive on mac stepbystep tutorial. Spinning with cdjs and thumb drives is straightforward. Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for windows compatibility. During the format of a usb flash drive or hdd, the operation system checks errors on it and, in some cases, fixes them. The first format, fat32, is fully compatible with mac os. Usb drive format tool is a tiny freeware utility designed for formatting any usb storage devices usb flash drive, usb stick, usb pen drive, usb portable drive, and. Go ahead and plug in your flash drive in the usb port on your mac. The following are a few reasons due to which usb flash drives are formatted. By the way, if you formatted a usb flash drive without data backup and you want to recover the. If the drive is called no name, directly above that, you should see the drive. The application will appear on the screen, and you will see the main window, with a list of available storage devices on the left and various disk management options on the right. Usb flash drives can be formatted in different file allocation system formats.
Format usb flash drive or external hard drive with disk utility. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility. To format a usb flash drive to fat32 in mac os x follow these steps. Plug the drive into a usb socket if you have a recent macbook or macbook pro that only has usbc connectors, youll need a usbc to usba adaptor. Compare with the other commonly used ntfs file system on a flash drive, fat32 has a compatibility advantage across many operating systems. For most reasons to erase, you should erase the disk, which also erases all volumes on that disk.
I plug in the usb flash drive, i see its identified as d. When i play the thumb drive in the car all the old files are still there plus the new files. Formatting would erase data completely, make sure that you have a data backup. If you also have the same requirements, then consider checking the existing pen drive format first. In this post, we are taking how to format usb flash drive or external hard drive on mac. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 on mac os xmacos. How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility in macos.
This is a simple procedure and is achieved the same way for all drive types and through. How to format a large capacity usb flash drive, fat32, windows. The main reason for formatting a usb drive as fat32 on a mac is that you want to be able to use. This simple guide will teach you how to format a flash drive on mac. This video will show you how to format a usb flash drive on a mac running osx mavericks. How to format a large capacity usb flash drive, fat32. Here, we will show you three ways to format usb flash drive, external hard drive. Follow these instructions to partition flash drive on mac.
Macs and pcs use different file systems, which can make it tricky to put data from your mac on a flash or hard drive and give it to a windows. Choose either apfs or mac os extended journaled to format as a mac volume. Go to applications and utilities and launch disk utility. Accordingly, if you switched from one operating system to another, then the question of how to format a usb flash drive on a mac is very urgent for you.
Please remember that all data will be deleted from the drive, so make sure you have made a backup. For apple mac users, the easier way to format usb flash drive to fat32 is using the disk utility. Your mac computer comes with a handy utility appropriately called disk utility, which can be used to. How to format usb drives on windows 10 make tech easier. Connect the usb flash drive or other volume that youre using for the bootable installer. How to check the pen drive format a lot of users choose to format pen drive to change its format. Make sure that you understand which formats will be the best for various systems and format your usb drive in those. By using the command prompt, you can format any usb flash drive, pen drive or memory stick that is write protected, corrupted, damaged, unreadable, unrecognized by pc and mobile.
Heres how you can check the format of thumb drive on mac. I also show you how to securely format the drive if you have sensitive information on it. Usb drives can be formatted on your mac using the disk utility application. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 in mac os x. Aomei partition assistant standard is free usb exfat format tool that will assist you format usb flash drive, usb hard drive, thumb drive, pen drive, and sd card from fat32 or ntfs to exfat. Now, lets take a look at some ways you can format your usb drive on windows 10. Rightclick the removable drive and select the format option. But, if you plan on using an external drive with both macs and pcs, you should format the disk with the exfat file system instead. How to format an external drive for mac compatibility. To format a drive on a mac, youll need the builtin disk utility application. Chances are that it might be of an ideal format beforehand. However, if you want to use part of the drive for os xs time machine backups, you should do this from the mac.
Not only this, we will help you pick the best file system for your usb flash drive that you are planning to use on a mac. Stepbystep tutorial to format usb flash drive or external hard drive on mac. Select your thumb drive in the disk utility window then click the erase tab. As a rule, users ignore all the disk format options provided by formatting utilities. Pulling the thumb drive it gives a no data message.