Jan 15, 2019 all the drives will be at hand in the menu bar, so you can get to see types of drives you have and manage them easily. In the screenshot my no name thumb drive has a bunch of files on it. For more information, including a detailed overview, watch this ipad users guide. Now, lets take a look at some ways you can format your usb drive on windows 10. Formatting usb flash drives for mac when you buy a usb flash drive, also called a jump drive, thumb drive, usb stick or one of many other names, it usually comes formatted for windows computers. Oct 29, 2019 now, we all use usb drives to transfer our data or maintain its backup. If you plan to use the drive only for your mac, then you can easily reformat it in mac os extended format using disk utility. How to format a usb flash drive on a mac techwalla. How to clear a flash drive on pc or mac with pictures. If you dont have a mac, you can look for a tool called gparted its linux and free and you can make a bootable usb stick and use that on most hardware. The file system exfat combines the best of both ntfs and fat for flash drives by reading and writing larger files at a faster speed. Once youve copied any files you need from the usb drive to your mac. Insert the flash drive or hard drive you want to format for windows compatibility. How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility.
A jump drive, or usb flash drive, offers convenient portability to your data. 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. Disk utility on mac supports several file system formats. On a large thumb drive, i almost always use the ntfs formatting because of the occasional file larger than 4 gb. Some clients with pcs report that the thumb drives ive begun providing in lieu of dvd roms sandisk, some generic brands dont mount properly. For school or work projects, this portability means you can work from home, work or. Format an external hard drive or usb flash drive for mac os x. How to remove encryption partition on kingston flash drive. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 on mac easily.
Whether youre formatting an internal drive, external drive, or usb flash drive, windows makes it possible to choose between ntfs and exfat formats. Please note that some drives come preformatted for mac or windows, but you should know how to format drives as certain formats will work best in certain situations and workflows. Since mac gives a onestop solution to do it all, you wont face any problem like pen drive not formatting on mac. All files are gone but when i view the info of the thumb drive, it shows that the drive is half full. How to format usb drives on windows 10 make tech easier. How to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows. Choice of scheme when formatting usb flash drive in macos.
To format a flash drive on a mac, plug in the drive and open the applications folder, the utilities folder and then disk utility. Sep 19, 2011 mac os extended journaled this is the default file system format for mac os x drives. How to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. In the new properties window, check general file system and youll see what type of file system your flash drive is currently with. Ive seen claims on the internet that formatting these drives in the mac os extended journaled format speeds up transfers. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 on mac os xmacos. May 17, 2012 fat32 for most anything, small use under 4gb sized files, thumb drives, most compatibility with connecting to tvs consoles and other devices. The disk manager tool is able to list all hard drives and external devices on your mac. Many of these drives offer a keyring attachment hole, so you will never be without your data. How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility in macos.
Feb 21, 2020 how to format a usb flash drive with mac to fat32. How to format an external drive for mac compatibility. This is a simple procedure and is achieved the same way for all drive types and through. However, if the usb flash drive is not mounted on mac, you will lose access to. Windows 10 my stuff search feature finds items in onedrive and connected drives. Mar 02, 2016 if you have no use for a windowsformatted drive that you want to use your mac, or a bootable drive youd rather use as a usb flash drive instead, formatting is the answer because you can set up that drive tailored around your personal needs. Its very easy to format a usb drive on a mac using disk utility. How to format usb flash drive on mac stepbystep tutorial. How to clean up a thumb drive mactips top tips and. In this article, we are taking a closer look at the disk utility, which comes with all recent versions of the mac os x operating system and how you can use it to format usb drive on. If your windows xp machine doesnt have exfat, there is a free download from microsoft. Benefits of formatting usb flash drive premium usb.
Click the erase button or tab, then complete these fields. Heres how to format a new flash drive thumb driveusb stick on a mac for both pc and mac. On the left side of the window are the drives connected to the computer. Formatting cleans off these files to get it ready for you to use. Solution 1 format in exfat exfat file system that allows a single file larger than 4gb to be stored on the device.
Are you about to install macos high sierra or later on the disk. See this stepbystep tutorial for how to format your usb drive for mac machine macos and pc windows 10. Download disk formatting software for mac doyourdata. To use hfsexplorer, connect your macformatted drive to your windows pc and launch hfsexplorer. Formatting a drive will erase all data and partitions on the disk. Though, there are times when we wish to format pen drive on mac. Cleanmydrive is absolutely free to use, so download it on the mac app store and enjoy. File system formats available in disk utility on mac apple. If you need to erase your disk before installing high sierra or later for the first time on that disk, choose mac os extended journaled. How to prepare a usb flash drive to work with an apple ipad. Transferring a 4gb or larger file to a usb flash drive or. However, if the usb flash drive is not mounted on mac, you will lose access to the usb flash drive as well as to the data stored on it. Master boot record is appropriate for external drives used with a pc or boot camp.
If you need a partition larger than 32gb, i highly recommend using a mac. I use the exfat format so you can go between the two of them. It will automatically locate the connected drive, and you can load it. This problem isnt unique to thumb drives, by the way it can happen any time to any storage medium. Connect the hard drive or usb key to the mac launch disk utility, located in applications utilities locate the drive name from the left hand side of disk utility and click on it. You can also open a finder window, select applications in the sidebar, and head to utilities disk utility. When you empty trash, the computer will locate the hidden directory on all the attached drives. Formatting drives cinema studies technology resources. Formatting the flash drive as exfat or ntfs will resolve this issue.
Mar 03, 2020 go to this pc, under devices and drives, highlight the disk that represents your usb flash drive, rightclick and select properties. In this article, we are taking a closer look at the disk utility, which comes with all recent versions of the mac os x operating system and how you can use it to format usb drive on mac. Now, we all use usb drives to transfer our data or maintain its backup. Most usb flash drives on sale are designed to work with windows operating systems that run on fat32. It is userfriendly that mac will automatically mount the inserted usb flash drives. Formatting your usb flash drive this way will give you full interoperability with macs. Some flash drives have to be formatted first before you can store files on them. How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility in. The quickest way is to search on spotlight and click.
The main reason for formatting a usb drive as fat32 on a mac is that you want to be able to use. If you want to use a different file system on your usb drive, youll need to format it. Many computer users who use a removable flash drive have the demand for formatting it to the fat32 file system. How to format usb flash drive to fat32 on mac os xmacos easeus. Your mac computer comes with a handy utility appropriately called disk utility, which can be used to. How to format a thumbflash drive on a ma apple community. The following instructions are for formatting new external hard drives or thumb drives. In this clip, youll learn how to prepare and format a usb thumb drive for use with an apple ipad. Dec 29, 2015 how to format a hard drive for both windows and mac. While drives are sold as plugandplay, formatting prior to use will give you optimal performance and. There are a couple of things you should keep in mind, however. Overview of formatting usb drive on mac mac systems have a different os to windows and this is where most of the problems like. Want to format pen drive on mac, but cant seem to find a feasible solution.
All the drives will be at hand in the menu bar, so you can get to see types of drives you have and manage them easily. 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 user. If you have your flash drive and computer system, you already have all the tools you need. If you plan to use the drive only for your mac, then you can easily reformat it. Click the file menu and select load file system from device. Go to the applications folder on your macs hard drive, then go to the utilities folder, and launch disk utility. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility macyourself. Compare with the other commonly used ntfs file system on a flash drive, fat32 has a compatibility advantage across many operating systems. File system formats available in disk utility on mac. Are you formatting the disk that came built into your mac. Jan 30, 2017 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 sdcard in fat, fat32, exfat. Mac os extended journaled this is the default file system format for mac os x drives. Directions for creating a usb drive tesla motors club. Click the partition tab, if you want to use more than one partition in the drive.
Most external hard drives and usb drives are compatible for use on mac computers as long as you format the devices for use with mac os x. Formatting will delete all the data in your device. Fat 32 is the most compatible disk format which is why its the most widely used on usb thumb drives its compatible with both mac and windows. You can do it to erase drive data, troubleshoot a problem, reformat it, and do so much more.
For most reasons to erase, you should erase the disk, which also erases all volumes on that disk. Your flash drive should be listed in the left menu. Apple file system format or the older mac os extended format. Alternatively, if you like to keep each project separate, buy many small flash drives so you don. A drive with two partitions, for example can have one partitioned in exfat and another in a mac os extended format, so you can use the same drive on a mac and a windows computer. How to format a usb flash drive on windows 10 windows. How to format a drive for mac and pc compatibility posted by ant on march 11th, 2012 43 comments if you have an external hard drive or usb flash drive that youd like to use on both macs and windows pcs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. In my friends case we did some troubleshooting and then decided to. Usb flash drive format tool free download and software. How to format thumb drive or pen drive on mac recoverit. 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. To format a drive on a mac, youll need the builtin disk utility application. Read this step by step tutorial on how to format a thumb drive or reformat it in mac. Jul 16, 2017 heres how to format a new flash drive thumb driveusb stick on a mac for both pc and mac.
Enter a name for the disk or volume, such as macintosh hd. 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. Jul 22, 2019 how to format a flash drive to work on os x and windows. Again, formatting a drive will erase it completely, so make sure you have everything backed up that you want to keep. In this guide, we show you virtually every method to format a usb flash drive and quickly erase its contents or fix data corruption and other issues using windows 10s builtin tools. How to format a flash drive for mac and pc compatibility in macos high sierra july 20, 2018 dennis sellers 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 user. Whether youre the proud owner of an apple ipad or perhaps just considering picking one up, youre sure to benefit from this free video tutorial.
Plug the drive into a usb socket if you have a recent macbook or macbook pro. If the builtin disk came apfsformatted, dont change it to mac os extended. Free download disk formatting software for mac to easily format mac hard drive, format external hard drive, usb, memory card under mac os. Feb 03, 2020 are you formatting the disk that came built into your mac. When youre reformatting a hard drive, windows will ask you what format to use. Flash drives also sometimes come with specialized windows software that mac users dont need. Especially since thumb drives arent expandable, youll want to pick one big enough to encompass your needs for quite a while.
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