Format Usb Drive For Mac

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Format Usb Drive For Mac

 Sep 28, 2020 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions
Format Usb Drive For Mac And Windows
Format Usb Drive For Mac And Pc Scheme
How To Format Usb Drive For Mac
Format Usb Drive For Mac And Pc
Whether you're formatting your Classic USB drive or a more unconventional one like a USB Brochure on Mac, the first thing you should figure out is what file system you want to format your USB. File System Definition: A file system is a system available on drives that determines how the drive stores and organizes data.
Sep 18, 2020 How to Format a USB Flash Drive with Mac to FAT32. Many computer users who use a removable flash drive have the demand for formatting it to the FAT32 file system.Compare with the other commonly used NTFS file system on a flash drive, FAT32 has a compatibility advantage across many operating systems.
1 Format a USB Drive to FAT32 in Mac OS with Disk Utility. Insert the USB to be formatted to a Mac PC. Navigate to Applications  Utilities, and click it twice to open it. Select the drive you want to format and click on Erase.
Any and all data on the USB drive will be destroyed during this process. Make sure the drive is blank, or copy the data to a safe place before proceeding. Insert a USB drive into your USB port. MacOS will recognize the drive and show its icon on the desktop. Launch Disk Utility. Select Search in the top-right corner. Type in 'Disk Utility'. How to format an drive to use with a Mac & PC If you want to format a drive so that you can copy files between a Mac and a PC you'll want to follow the tutorial above, but choose ExFAT from the.
If your USB flash drive is not recognized by your Apple Mac computer because it has a different format it is kind of difficult to format it. You may not know how to format your USB flash drive to make it compatible with your Mac system but we do and will show you how to do it in this article.
Overview of Formatting USB Drive on MacMac Systems have a different OS to Windows and this is where most of the problems like. Most USB flash drives on sale are designed to work with Windows operating systems that run on Fat32. Mac devices on the other hand run on either Mac OS Extended or APFS. If your drive is an APFS format or a Mac OS format you can format your drive easily but if it is a FAT32 format this may be a problem. If you have made the mistake of buying a flash drive they run on a FAT32 file format you don't have to discard it altogether. There are ways to format a flash drive that runs in a different format and we will show you steps to take to remedy the situation.
Related: Further, read and know more complete details on formatting external hard drive for Mac.
Step to Format a USB Drive to FAT32 on Your MacPlug the drive into the Mac system
Choose Applications- Utilities then Disk Utility
From the sidebar pick USB drive
From the toolbar select Erase
Name the formatted disk and choose either ExFat or MS-DOS(FAT32) from the menu
Select erase to format your drive depending on the selection you have picked (FAT32 or ExFAT)
Format Usb Drive For Mac And WindowsConvert/Format USB Flash drive to FAT32 using Command LineConnect Flash drive to Mac
Tap CMD and space bar to open Spotlight. Type 'terminal' and press Enter
Type in :diskutill land locate your USB drive
Type in sudo.diskutilerasediskFAT32MBRFormat/Dev/disk2
Sudo will give you the user right
Diskutill will call in the utility program
Erasedisk commands will format
FAT32 will set the file system
MBRFormat will tell the disk to format with Master Boot
/Dev/disk2 will be the USB drive location
You will have to wait a while for the format to be completed. Type in : diskutill to check if the process was successful.
If you follow these steps religiously you should be able to resolve the issue quickly. If you're searching for a way that helps you recover formatted USB drive on Mac, download Recoverit Data Recovery software and go to the page telling you how to restore the formatted hard drive.
Video Tutorial on How to Format a USB Flash Drive on MacWhat's Wrong with MacFormat Usb Drive For Mac And Pc SchemeRecover Your MacFix Your MacDelete Your MacLearn Mac Hacks Sep 28, 2020 • Filed to: Solve Mac Problems • Proven solutions
'I just bought a new flash drive last week but I realized it wasn't meant to be used for Mac. Now it can't be formatted using the macOS preferred file system and I don't see a way out. So, please tell me how do I format a USB to fat32 on a Mac?'
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 MacFormatting 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.
Connect the hard drive or USB with Mac and open Disk Utility from Applications.
Locate the drive from the left side panel of Disk Utility and open it.
Now switch to the Erase tab and click on the Format drag-down menu. Choose the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) option.
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.
Related: How to Recover Formatted Hard Drive on Mac.
Part 3. The Best Format Choice of External Drive on MacUsing 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
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:Connect the USB drive to Mac and launch Disk Utility from Application. On the left side panel, you will see the USB drive name.
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:Connect the USB drive to Mac and press CMD + Space key to run Spotlight. Type Terminal in the search bar and hit Enter.
When the Terminal window opens up, type diskutil list and you'll find out which is your USB drive.
Type the command sudo diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 MBRFormat /dev/disk2 whereSudo 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.
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Video Tutorial on How to Format a USB Flash Drive on MacPart 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 modeLaunch 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. Ati flash tool for mac.
Step 2: Scan the LocationThe software will scan the Mac drive to look for lost or deleted files. 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 RecoverHow To Format Usb Drive For MacClick 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.
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.
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