Nowadays, when you buy a USB drive, you can use it right out of the box with your Mac. However, unless it’s been designed for use with a Mac, it won’t be formatted using macOS’ preferred file system (either Mac OS Extended or APFS, depending on which version of macOS you’re running). That’s because most of the computers in the world run Windows, and Windows uses a different file system, usually one known as Fat32. Drives formatted as Fat32 can be read from and written to by macOS, but it’s not optimal and you’re more likely to run into problems than if you use macOS’ native format. So, if you’ve bought a USB drive that’s formatted as Fat32, or any other format other than Mac OS Extended (also known as HFS+) or APFS, here’s how to format a USB drive on Mac.
To determine if Mac OS detects your USB device, you need to open System Information on your computer to see if your USB device is listed under the.
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It’s exactly the same procedure if you need to reformat a flash drive on a Mac. How to format a USB drive on a Mac 1. Plug the drive into a USB socket (if you have a recent MacBook or MacBook Pro that only has USB-C connectors, you’ll need a USB-C to USB-A adaptor). Open a new Finder window and click on the drive. Make sure it has no files on it that you need. The process of reformatting it will wipe all the data from it. Once you’ve copied any files you need from the USB drive to your Mac, go to ApplicationsUtilities and double-click on Disk Utility.
Click on the USB drive in the sidebar and then choose Erase from the toolbar at the top of the window. In the window that drops down type a name for the formatted drive in the box next to Name. Choose a format from the dropdown menu. If you have previously stored sensitive data on the drive, click the Security tab.
Choose a security level using the slider. The further to the right you move the slider, the more ‘passes’ the erase tool will make and the more securely files will be deleted. However, it also increases the time it takes to format the drive quite considerably. Click Ok then click Erase. Tip: You don’t need to erase a whole drive to delete files securely. If you have confidential files or sensitive data you need to remove from your Mac completely, you should use File Shredder.
It’s specifically designed to securely delete sensitive data and will render it unrecoverable. You can download CleanMyMac X for free. Which format to choose? If your Mac is running macOS High Sierra or later, you have two options for file formats: APFS and Mac OS Extended. Which should you choose? The key point is that disks formatted as APFS won’t be recognized by Macs running versions of macOS older than High Sierra. So if you think you might need to plug the USB drive into a Mac running an older version of macOS, format it as Mac OS Extended.
APFS is optimized for SSD (solid state drive) such as flash drives, so if you reformat a flash drive on a Mac, you should definitely choose APFS (unless you plan to use it with a pre-High Sierra Mac, of course). Even on hard drives, however, APFS is faster and more reliable than Mac OS Extended.
Finally, if you plan to use the USB drive as a destination for Time Machine backups, choose Mac OS Extended. Time Machine can’t currently back up to an APFS disk and if you select one for use with Time Machine, it will offer to reformat it as Mac OS Extended. You can, however, backup an APFS formatted disk to a Mac OS Extended Time Machine drive. How to format a USB drive to FAT32 on a Mac The main reason for formatting a USB drive as Fat32 on a Mac is that you want to be able to use the drive on a Windows PC, as well as a Mac — perhaps to transfer files between the two machines.
You may also be preparing the drive for use as, say, a storage device for a media player or to record TV programmes on a TV with a USB port. The fact that Fat32 can be read from and written to on both Mac and Windows makes it very versatile. However, there is a significant limitation — individual files have a maximum size of 4GB. So, if you’re using the USB drive to store large video files, you may run into trouble. There is a solution, however, exFAT. Unlike FAT32, exFAT doesn’t have a maximum file limit.
Better still, it can be read from and written to on any Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard or later and on Windows. To format a USB drive in FAT32 or exFAT: 1.
Plug the USB drive into your Mac. Go to ApplicationsUtilities and launch Disk Utility. Click on the USB drive in the sidebar in Disk Utility. Click Erase in the Disk Utility toolbar. Type in a name for the formatted disk. Click on the Format menu and choose either MS-DOS (FAT32) or ExFAT.
Your USB drive will now be erased and re-formatted as either FAT32 or ExFAT, depending on the format you chose in step 6. How to manage your drives easily If you look for a quick and easy way to manage your drives, try using. With its help, you can drag-and-drop files directly to any drive, clean hidden junk from external drives, and check disk stats. It works for all drives, including USB drives, SSD, SD cards, external hard drives. 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. CleanMyDrive is absolutely free to use, so download it on the Mac App Store and enjoy!
It’s very easy to format a USB drive on a Mac using Disk Utility. There are a couple of things you should keep in mind, however. The first is that when you format and disk, you will erase all the data currently on it. So if you need that data, make sure you copy it onto another disk before you start. Secondly, there are several formats to choose from, each with advantages and disadvantage. Use the guide above to help you decide which is right for you. These might also interest you:.
On Friday, you my and executive editor Susie Ochs’s experiences with our out-of-the-box, retail purchased MacBooks. We had a lot of glitches in setup and configuration, many confirmed by other MacBook owners and some by people who had experienced the same problems in setting up new Macs. But the one truly unexpected part had to do with migration. Because of an OS X mismatch—the MacBook shipped with 10.10.2 and my MacBook Air had 10.10.3 installed—I was unable to use the initial setup assistant to migrate. (If I’d been persistent, I could have booted into the Recovery Disk on the MacBook, used network recovery to download and install 10.10.3 on the startup partition, and then proceeded.) After a few downloads and restarts to get 10.10.3 installed, the MacBook failed multiple times to use Migration Assistant to move files over Wi-Fi. The MacBook lacks Thunderbolt and FireWire interfaces, which are required for Target Disk Mode (TDM), in which a Mac is mounted on another Mac as a drive. (At startup, you hold down the T key until a USB logo appears on screen.) A few days before the MacBook shipped, about USB-based TDM, something that hadn’t previously existed.
(Some colleagues’ memory told them that the original MacBook Air and perhaps another model offered it, but perusing archives and checking support pages indicates that was never the case.) Then the note disappeared! Perhaps the only way to manage a migration, if a networked one via Wi-Fi wouldn’t work, was going to be through the method I landed on: Time Machine backup from the original machine, and then a restore on the new MacBook. (Some folks also used, both reasonable choices that require slightly more knowledge.) And then, like magic, the USB-C page at Apple was updated with fully revised TDM information on Saturday. It’s possible, but it requires a lot of qualifications.
The inside skinny Apple’s revised information lists two scenarios, depending on the cable:. With a USB 3.0 or 3.1 USB Type A to USB-C cable. With a USB-C to USB-C cable (with 3.0 or 3.1 support) Apple notes helpfully, “These cables are not currently available from Apple.” Alas, the USB-C cable that comes with the MacBook only supports USB 2.0 data rates for syncing, and USB 3 is apparently required.
The two cable types Apple mentions are both so-called SuperSpeed or SuperSpeed+ cables. USB 3.0 offer a top 5Gbps throughput rate, and is marketed as SuperSpeed with an SS on the cable head. The same rate is incorporated into USB 3.1 as Gen 1. Gen 2 USB 3.1 offers 10Gbps rates (as SuperSpeed+ or SS+), but only on equipment that’s configured for it. The MacBook is a Gen 1-only device, but can use any previous generation USB 2.0 or 3.0 cable as well as SuperSpeed+ cables. With a, Apple now says you can plug a MacBook into any other Mac notebook and mount the MacBook in TDM. It’s unclear why this is limited to notebooks, and we’ll be testing it with fast cables as soon as we have them.
However, you still cannot use Setup Assistant or Migration Assistant over a Type A to Type C cable! The allows MacBook-to-MacBook migration, which is something very few people could possibly need now, but it will be useful in the future as USB-C appears on more computers. I’ll be testing a variety of USB-C adapters and cables in the near future.