This simple guide will teach you How to Format a Flash Drive on 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.

• How To Format A Usb Flash Drive For Mac
• Format Pny Usb Flash Drive Mac
• Format Usb Flash Drive Ntfs Mac
• Usb Flash Drive Format For Mac
• Usb Flash Drive Format For Mac And Windows

Majority of 49.4% of desktop and laptop computer users in the world use Windows operating system. In contrast, only 27.4% of users use MacOS, obviously for their apple computer. That’s the reason why most of the flash drives in the market are available in Fat32 or NTFS formats which are the most preferred format for windows.

Although the first one, Fat32 is completely compatible with both MacOS as well as Windows, it has some limitations. Fat32 can store files only up to 4 GB of size. The latter one, NTFS is mostly used on the Windows operating system and not an optimal option for MacOS. Extra work is needed to use NTFS on MacOS. If you want to use your flash drive solely for MacOS, it is highly recommended to format your flash drive.

Here, pop-ups the question: How to format a flash drive on a mac?

Connect the USB flash drive to your computer. To do so, plug it into one of your Mac's USB ports, which resemble thin, rectangular slots on your computer's housing. Some Macs don't have USB ports, so you'll need to purchase an adapter.

Contents

Formatting your USB flash drive on your Mac device is very easy to do and doesn’t require installing any third party tools or having any complex steps. All you need to do is to open your Mac and insert the USB flash drive n one of the ports. The following steps will help you to. 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. Open a new Finder window and click on the drive. Make sure it has no files on it that you need. Once you’ve copied any. Step 1: Plug the drive in the USB socket. For those who own a MacBook or MacBook Pro which has a USB C connector, they need to use a USB C to USB A adaptor. Step 2: Check the new Finder box and tap on the drive. Formatting with macOS Catalina Step 1: Launch Disk Utility to Format USB for Mac and Windows Insert the USB drive into an open port on your Mac. Step 2: Choose the Drive to Format Select your USB drive in Disk Utility's left menu. In OS X, you can identify the. Step 3: Choose the Format to.

• 1 Before you format a flash drive
  • 1.1 Check flash Drive’s File System
• 2 How to format a flash drive on Mac?

Before you format a flash drive

MacOS supports HFS plus file system. HFS stands for Hierarchical File System.

Apple introduced this file system in 1985 to replace the existing Macintosh File System or MFS. HFS filesystem is modified into HFS plus (Modernly called as MacOS Extended). Before you format a flash drive it is suggested to know what file system your flash drive is in.

Check flash Drive’s File System

You don’t need to do anything special to know your flash drive’s file system. There are 2 ways you can do this.

Method 1: Using Finder

Plug in your flash drive. Now open the Finder and look for your USB device. Then right-click on the drive’s name. Select “Get Info” from the list of options opened.

A new window will open. Just to the right of “Format” is your drive’s file system.

Method 2: Using Disk utility app

Open the Disk Utility app from the utility folder available in the application. Your drive will be on the left column of the window. Click on the partition. Here you can check the current format of your flash drive.

If your flash drive’s file system is MS-DOS or ExFAT you can use it as it is without further formatting. But if it is NTFS, format your flash drive to make it completely compatible with MacOS.

How to format a flash drive on Mac?

Disk Utility application in MacOS is the best option to format a flash drive on MacOS. You can launch this app in two ways.

Step 1: Press Space while holding your command button. A search box will open. Type Disk Utility in the search box and press enter. Alternatively, Open the Finder window and select applications on the left sidebar. Navigate to Utilities and then Disk Utilities.

Step 2: Search for your flash drive on the sidebar of the Disk Utility app and select it by clicking on its name.

Step 3: Now Click the “Erase” button which is located just below the title bar of the window which says “Disk Utility”. This will erase your whole drive and make it a single partition.

Here you can change the name of your USB drive if you wish. This name will be visible on other devices as well if you plug your flash drive into them. Just below the Name section, you can see a section called “Format”.

You will need to choose a format option to change your flash drive’s file system. But which format to choose is the big question now! No need to worry. Read the description of each format given below and choose the format of your choice.

Types of filesystems

Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

This format is considered as default file system format of the Mac OS X drives. It also supports OS X Lion, like Versions. This format will allow you to use your flash drive on Mac without any limitations.

With Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, you can setup OS X startup drive. Make sure you have right files and know how to do it. If you have any issues with a built-in drive you can boot from the external disk. This file system format is highly recommended for MacOS. But you cannot write this flash drive from windows PC once you have formatted it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). You can read files though.

OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)

Go for this type of filesystem if you really need it for some reason. For OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled), the word “File” is different than “file”. It means it’s case sensitive as the name suggests.

OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted)

Same as filesystem just mentioned above but of course with encryption.

OS X Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)

To use a flash drive with this filesystem you will have to set up a password & enter it whenever you plug in your drive into any device.

MS-DOS (FAT)

This is just a name for the FAT32 filesystem in Disk Utility application. FAT32 supports to almost all of the operating systems in the world. This allows you to transfer files from one operating system to other. The best thing about this filesystem is its support to video game systems which include Xbox 360 and PlayStation. This filesystem can be called a universal system. The limitation about FAT32 filesystem is it doesn’t allow files which are bigger than 4 GB in size and also you cannot create a startup drive unlike Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

ExFAT

This is a new type of filesystem and it supports MacOS X 10.6.5 and later. It is same as FAT32 but it supports files larger than 4 GB. As this filesystem is relatively new, it does not on relatively older versions of Mac OS X. If you don’t use any older version of the operating system, you can use this type of filesystem.

Use ExFAT for this tutorial if you wish to use your flash drive on windows as well on MacOS.

Step 4: For this tutorial, you can ignore the Scheme option which we use if you wish to boot from your flash drive. Click on erase button to format your flash drive.

Voila! You have formatted your flash drive now. You can eject drive by right-clicking on its name in the left sidebar and click on “Eject”.

Suggested article: How to Reset SMC on Mac?

I hope this article has helped. If you are still facing problems or have doubts on how to format USB drive on Mac, then simply comment below.

Dec 16, 2020 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions

Most of the people in the world prefer using a Windows PC. And the Windows system uses a different file system which is known as Fat32. Usually, the Fat32 drive can be read and written by macOS, but it is not considered optimal. Even if you try to format the Fat32 drive on Mac, you might end up causing more issues. So, if you have got your hands on a drive which is formatted as Fat32 of any other format instead of Mac OS Extended or APFS, then you should go through this article.

Here, we are going to learn the procedure to format a USB drive and an external hard drive on Mac. Even if you want to reformat the drive on Mac, we have all the answers for you.

Part 1. Overview of Formatting Drive on Mac

Formatting isn't just a process of erasing the existing data on a drive. It is done as a routine maintenance task. But if you want to ensure that the drive has a complete Mac compatibility, then you'll have to format the drive using the Mac OS Extended filesystem. It is possible to read and write on a drive that has a different file system. But unless you format the drive on Mac, it can't be used as a bootable disk or with Time Machine.

Unless you intend to use the drive for file exchange between Windows and Mac, the formatting would be the right thing to do. Here are some other factors that will conclude that formatting the external drive with Mac is necessary as it will also improve the performance of the drive.

• To remove the data from a USB drive or any other drive completely. Simply erasing the data leaves a binary print on the drive. But formatting will erase the binary data too.
• To change the Operating system. Using another OS-compatible drive can make your OS vulnerable to viruses, malware, and other malfunctions. Thus, formatting the drive and deleting the previous system files and settings is vital.
• To improve the performance of the drive, frequent formatting is essential.
• To remove all kinds of viruses and malware, formatting works more effectively than deleting the files.

Thus, formatting the USB drive or external hard drive will get rid of any software conflict that you are facing and even glitches will disappear.

Part 2. How to Format a Hard Drive on Mac?

Now you can understand that there are several benefits of formatting a drive. Technically, when you want to switch a USB or hard drive system to another OS, it is termed as reformatting. It allows the users to reinstall OS and all other software once the format is complete. It is considered as a better process as it is comparatively easy to format the drive for Mac instead of removing files which are malfunctioning. So, from here on, reformat will be considered as a format.

So, here is the process by which you can format hard drive or USB for Mac. The same procedure is followed for all other storage devices too.

1. Connect the hard drive or USB with Mac and open Disk Utility from Applications.
2. Locate the drive from the left side panel of Disk Utility and open it.
3. Now switch to the Erase tab and click on the Format drag-down menu. Choose the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) option.
4. Change the name of the drive if you want to and finally tap on the Erase option at the bottom of the interface.

A popup window will appear and ask you to confirm the action. As you press the Erase button, everything on the drive will be deleted completely. If you are formatting a small flash drive or USB drive, the process will complete quickly. But if you are formatting a big size hard drive, then the process might take longer than you expect. And make sure that you don't close the Disk Utility before the process finishes.

Part 3. The Best Format Choice of External Drive on Mac

Using the external drive on Mac is a good idea as it provides additional storage. But it is hard to pick a suitable format as it depends on your usage. So, it is better that you know your options and understands which format is right for you. So, here are the best formats for an external hard drive for Mac. You can choose from a variety of file systems.

1. Apple File System (APFS):

All new Macs come pre-installed with this file system. It is optimal for use if you prefer using a Solid State Drive or flash drive. But it is also compatible with the mechanical hard disk drives too. If you don't want to use the drive with Windows OS, then you can pick this format.

• Fast copy and paste
• Better organization of data
• Improved metadata handling and focus on the encryption

How To Format A Usb Flash Drive For Mac

2. Mac OS Extended (HFS+):

This format means a Hierarchical File System plus. This was the main file format for macOS before APFS was released. You can reformat USB on Mac to this format easily. This format is suitable for both mechanical and SSD. This format can't be accessed by Windows and if you want to do that, you'll need an additional program.

3. exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table):

This format is designed to overcome the limitation of format fat32 on Mac. By using this format, you can easily share the content between Mac and Windows.

• Read and write feature compatible with Mac and Windows OS
• Ideal for flash storage and External drives.

4. MS-DOS (FAT):

It is the FAT32 format on Mac and it is labeled as MS-DOS (FAT). This format is only ideal for old computers. If you need to transfer the files from an old computer, then you can switch to this format. Otherwise, you'll have to deal with its limitation. It is only good for Windows XP, so, you better avoid it for Mac.

As you can see, using the APFS or HFS+ format for Mac is ideal to avoid complications with your data files.

Part 4. How to Format USB to FAT32 on Mac?

process, make sure that you have made a backup, or extracted the files of the drive.

Method 1. With Disk Utility:

1. Connect the USB drive to Mac and launch Disk Utility from Application. On the left side panel, you will see the USB drive name.
2. Click on the USB name and switch to the Erase Tab. There, you will see the Format option where you have to select the MS-DOS (FAT) format and Master Boot Record scheme.

Finally click on the Erase button and the USB drive format will complete.

Method 2. Using Mac Command Line:

1. Connect the USB drive to Mac and press CMD + Space key to run Spotlight. Type Terminal in the search bar and hit Enter.
2. When the Terminal window opens up, type diskutil list and you'll find out which is your USB drive.
3. Type the command sudo diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 MBRFormat /dev/disk2 where
   • Sudo is the user right
   • diskutil call the disk utility program
   • EraseDisk command is to format
   • FAT32 set the file system
   • MBRFormat commands the Disk utility to use Master Boot Record to format.
   • /dev/disk2 is the location of your drive.

Wait for the process to finish and type diskutil list again to check whether formatting is done correctly or not. Now, you can use the USB with the FAT32 file system on Mac.

Format Pny Usb Flash Drive Mac

Video Tutorial on How to Format a USB Flash Drive on Mac

Format Usb Flash Drive Ntfs Mac

Part 5. How to Recover Formatted Data on Mac?

You will need a strong and reliable data recovery tool for this and Recoverit is the perfect answer. This software is specifically designed so that the users can restore the files that are lost from their system. Recoverit Data Recovery for Mac makes it convenient to get them back. It has a wide array of formats and files support. Plus, you can perform selective recovery along with the deep scan mode which has a 96% success rate.

You can download and install the software from the official website. Once it is installed, you can follow the steps below to recover the lost word files on Mac:

Step 1: Select the Recycle Bin Recovery mode

Launch the software and specify the location on the drive where you want to look for the lost files. In case you don't know the exact location, choose the 'I can find my partition' option and hit the Start button.

Step 2: Scan the Location

The software will scan the Mac drive to look for lost or deleted files. Simuler karaoke. Once the scan is finished, the results will be displayed on the screen. The files will be sorted out according to their formats. Now you can select the files.

Step 3: Preview and Recover

Click on the file to have a preview and make sure that it is not damaged. You can perform multiple selections with this tool. After you've selected all the files, you can tap on the Recover option at the bottom of the screen.

Usb Flash Drive Format For Mac

So, you now know what you can do if you ever lost your important files on Mac. However, while you are saving recovered screenshots on Mac, don't save them to the location from where they get lost.

As you can see, it is easy to format USB for Mac and Windows both. As Windows OS is more common, people know a thing or two about it. But Mac OS seems complicated to them. Once you get familiar with the OS, it is not that hard. And if some error arises or anything goes wrong, Recoverit is always here to retrieve your lost data. Applocker windows 10 pro.

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