How to Format or Partition an External Hard Drive for Mac BY JP Zhang Updated Oct 27, 2017. 10 comments So, you just bought an external hard drive or a portable SSD and wanted to use it on your Mac. Access to a working and supported Mac. Format USB to Apple supported file system. Get installer file for macOS. Create bootable USB. Booting Mac from Startup Manager. If you are not able to login to your Mac, you need to use Time Machine backup disk. Otherwise you should have another Mac for creating a bootable USB.
Formatting in context of USB or Hard Drives means deleting everything from that drive and rebuilding the file system so that we can use it with an Operating System. And we usually perform formatting in our USB or External Hard Drive when we want to get rid of viruses, or we want to clean the disk as it was when we purchased it. Also when we buy a new USB or Hard Drive, it often comes with windows compatible not the mac so formatting it even needed in this case. So in this post, I will tell you “How to Format USB on Mac?”.
How to Format USB on MAC?
If you never formatted a USB drive then don’t worry it is effortless. And here I will tell you two answers to this question that “How to Format USB on Mac?”.聽First, we will go with the straightforward way of doing it; then we will move to the easy way. 馃槈
So first, we will use the Disk Utility program, which is a GUI and very straightforward so that any kid can do it. Then in the next method, we will format USB drive from mac terminal. So let’s start.
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Format USB on Mac using Disk Utility
- Connect the USB Drive to your Mac. (This is obvious we need a USB first, then only we can format it 馃槢 )
- Now we need to open Disk Utility. (Here I will give you one more tip. To open any program in your Mac just press the command + spacebar.聽It will start the Spotlight Search, now from here you can search for any program, but now we need Disk Utility, so search it).
- Now, on the Disk Utility window you will see External Drives on the left.
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/3/3/9/133916231/953400364.jpg)
- Here I have my USB Drive connected, and its name is No Name. In the top we have options like First Aid, Partition, Erase, Restore, Unmount. To format the drive we need to click on the Erase Button.
Format USB on Mac
- Here, we have two options, the first one is the Name that you can set for your USB Drive. The second one is the Format. If you want to make it windows compatible you need to select MS-DOS (FAT) here. And you can also use the Mac OS Format. So its up to you what you want.
- Now, just click on the Erase Button to complete the format.
- And thats it. Your drive is formatted.
For formatting any External Hard Drive, we can follow the same steps.聽
Format USB Drive Mac using Terminal
We also have a Command Line Disk Utility interface in Mac. And we can use it to format the USB on Mac as well. Now lets see how we do this.
- First open the terminal (Again press command + space, write terminal and hit enter).
- In terminal now type the following command.
- The above command will display all the disk connected with your machine.
Format Flash Drive For Windows And Mac
- Here the USB Drive that is connected, is disk2 and we will format this disk only. To format the USB drive here we will write the following command.
- In the above command eraseDisk is the format command. Then comes JHFS+ is the Disk Type which is Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then Belal is the name of the disk that will be assigned after formatting. Finally we are writing the name of the disk that we need to format, which disk2 is in this case. Now hit enter.
- And the disk is formatted. 馃槈 Super Easy, isn’t it?
So that’s it for this tutorial friends if you got some problems then tell me in the comments. And if you think this post was useful for you, or it helped you in any way, then I request you to please SHARE it with your friends. I hope you got the answer very clearly that “How to Format USB on Mac?”. So thank you, guys. Will catch you in the next post.
Related
If you have a Mac and use storage devices like a USB drive of a different format than that recognized by Mac, you pretty much know that it is difficult to format it. The reason behind this is that most USB drives are designed to work on Windows OS, which runs on the FAT32 system. The Mac devices run on either APFS or Mac OS Extended.
So, if you have a drive that is Mac OS extended or APFS format, you can easily reformat your drive, but if the drive has a FAT32 file format, then you might be in problem. Mac can read and write on the FAT32 file format, but it will definitely give you some quality issues. Pip for mac.
But not worry if you have bought a flash drive that runs on a different format than what is preferred by Mac. Below are some easy steps that will guide you to format these drives to Mac OS and APFS.
![Format Format](https://5zmgwchi4v-flywheel.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/erasing-flash-drive-mac.png)
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How To Format A USB Drive On A Mac?
To format a USB drive, follow these steps: –
- To format pendrive on Mac, Connect USB drive into the given socket. The latest MacBook Pro or another MacBook has only USB-C type connectors, so if you have the recent Mac’s, you will require an adaptor to convert from USB-C to USB-A.
- Click the fresh Finder window. Then select the drive.
- Next navigate to Applications and select Utilities, then select Disk Utility by double-clicking on it.
- From the sidebar menu, select USB drive. Now select Erase from toolbar that is situated at top of window.
- Next a window will drop down; here type a specific name for formatted drive.
- Next from the drop-down menu, select the type of format you want.
- If the USB flash drive, has some sensitive data, click on Security tab. This will let you choose how securely you want the files to be deleted.
- Just move the slider to right, the further it moves, the more passes the erase feature will make meaning that the files will be removed discreetly. But keep in mind this step will increase the time of the format.
Note: – Formatting will wipe the entire data, so make sure the drive contains no important data on it. Copy any crucial data on your Mac. - Finally, click on OK and then select Erase.
This is a complete process of formatting a USB drive on Mac.
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While Reformatting A USB Drive, Which File Format Should Be Used?
Depending on the currently running version of Mac- MacOS high Sierra or older, there are two available choices for file format- Mac OS Extended and APFS. Now, below are some pointers that will help you to select the best format according to your requirements:
- If you have a Mac that runs the operating system (macOS) older than High Sierra, then it is crucial to format a thumb drive using the Mac OS Extended format. The reason behind this is that a reformatted disk in the APFS file format, will not load in the Mac.
- If you are planning to format a flash drive on a Mac, select the APFS format as they are SSD (solid state drive) optimized. Even if you consider reformatting a hard drive, APFS is a better option as it is fast and reliable.
- If you are going to utilize USB drive for Time Machine backups, then go for Mac OS Extended. This is because APFS disk doesn’t support Time Machine backup and even if you use this file format, it will give the option to reformat USB drive with Mac OS Extended.
- However, any APFS formatted drive can be backed up to a Mac OS extended Time Machine drive.
Steps To Format A USB Drive To Fat32 On Mac:
Format Usb For Mac And Windows Scheme
Gameboy emulator for mac. Before we learn how to format a USB drive to FAT32 on Mac, it is necessary to learn why to do? And the reason behind this is as follows: –
- FAT32 format can be read and written to on both the operating system- Mac and Windows.
- There are many people who like to use the drive on both Mac and Windows, and others use it as a device for storage for TV shows and thus reformatting to FAT32 is necessary.
- The only limitation with FAT32 is that the individual files should have a 4GB size and not more which poses a problem when USB drive has bigger size files.
- However, in such cases, exFAT can be used as it no such limitation and can run on OS.
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Here Are The Steps You Should Follow To Format USB Drive On Mac : –
Format Usb For Mac
- Into your Mac, plug in the USB drive
- Next, select Applications>Utilities and then launch Disk Utility
- From the disk utility sidebar, select the USB drive
- From the disk utility toolbar, chose Erase
- Give the formatted disk a name and select either MS-DOS (FAT32) or ExFat from the format menu.6
- Finally, select erase. Now your disk/drive will be reformatted to either FAT32 or ExFAT depending upon your selection
So, these are steps that you will need to follow while reformatting your USB drive. Remember that before formatting; check the drive for important data so that nothing crucial is deleted. For clarity on any doubts, feel free to connect with us in the comments section below. Citrix workspace for mac.
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