Apr 22, 2012 - Launch Disk Utility, found within /Applications/Utilities/ Connect the drive you wish to format for dual compatibility to the Mac. Click the drive name on the left side list in Disk Utility, and then click the “Erase” tab. Click the pulldown menu alongside “Format” and select “MS-DOS (FAT)”. See this step-by-step tutorial on how to format your USB drive on Mac (macOS 10.13 High Sierra) and PC (Windows 10). 12 thoughts on “ Guide: Formatting a USB Flash Drive for Mac & PC Compatibility ” Harsh Chaklasiya. October 24, 2017 at 6:28 pm| Reply. Thankyou so much!
The overwhelming majority of USB flash drives you buy are going to come in one of two formats:. The first format, FAT32, is fully compatible with Mac OS X, though with some drawbacks that we'll discuss later. If the drive comes formatted in NTFS, which is the default file system for Windows, you're going to want to re-format the drive because Mac OS X can't write files to NTFS-formatted volumes (at least not without a bunch of extra work that's beyond the scope of this article). How do you tell which format your brand-new USB drive has? Hook it up to your Mac and launch the Disk Utility app, located in your Utilities folder (which is in Applications). Your new drive should appear in the left-hand column, and clicking the 'Partition' tab will bring up info on the drive which includes its current format. If the drive's format comes up as MS-DOS (FAT) or, less likely, ExFAT, you may be able to simply leave the drive as-is and not bother reformatting it.
If the drive is listed as NTFS-formatted, you're going to need to format it to something else if you want full compatibility with Mac OS X. There are several possible file system formats you can use for a USB flash drive, and changing them in Disk Utility is as easy as selecting the number of partitions you want on the drive (usually just one), picking the format you want for the drive, and clicking 'Apply.' Note that this will erase all information on the drive, so make absolutely sure you've got copies of everything before moving forward. Disk Utility gives you five different choices for drive formats in OS X Lion. Unless you have extraordinary needs, you can safely ignore two of them: Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) and Free Space. I'll discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the other three formats below. Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - This is the default file system format for Mac OS X drives.
Advantages: Formatting your USB flash drive this way will give you full interoperability with Macs. It also includes support for features from OS X Lion, such as.
You can even if you have the right files, the know-how, and a big enough flash drive, which will allow you to boot your Mac off an external disk if something goes wrong with your built-in drive. The 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' option will have the highest degree of support for Mac OS X features, and there's no limit to the size of files you can put on the drive. Disadvantages: Windows-running PCs can read files from drives formatted this way, but they can't write to them (at least not without the same amount of work it takes to get OS X to write to NTFS-formatted drives). If you're transferring files from Macs to PCs, this won't be an issue; however, transferring files from PCs to Macs won't be possible if your drive is formatted in 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled).'
If you will only be working with Macs and not PCs, this may not be an issue. Otherwise, you may need to consider one of the file formats discussed below.
MS-DOS (FAT) - This is Disk Utility's name for the FAT32 filesystem. Advantages: FAT32 offers near-universal interoperability with virtually every computing system on the planet. A drive formatted this way can easily transfer files between Macs and PCs. You can also move files to video game systems like the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii. Virtually all cameras and videocameras support FAT32, too.
It's the closest thing we have to a universal file system format, which is why most flash drives are formatted this way right out of the box. Disadvantages: FAT32 doesn't support files larger than 4 GB, and that's its greatest drawback. You also can't create a startup drive for your Mac using this format. Furthermore, feature - something users have discovered the hard way when working directly off of files stored on a USB flash drive (something ). However, those downsides may be more than outweighed by FAT32's near-universal support, and if you don't think you're going to be dealing with files bigger than 4 GB, this may be the optimal choice. ExFAT - A newer file format, supported in Mac OS X 10.6.5 or later. Advantages: has many of the same advantages as FAT32 in that it's a disk format that offers interoperability between Macs and PCs.
It has one big advantage over FAT32: exFAT supports file sizes larger than 4 GB, so if you have a need to move huge files between Macs and PCs, this is likely the format you'll want for your flash drive. ExFAT is supported by the following operating systems:. Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.5 or greater). OS X Lion. Windows XP SP2 or later (with an additional update for exFAT support). Windows Vista SP1 or later.
Windows 7 Disadvantages: As a relatively newer file system format, exFAT isn't supported in older versions of Mac OS X (anything prior to 10.6.5) or anything older than Windows XP SP2. If you won't be dealing with older Macs or PCs, this may not be a problem. Of greater issue is that most consumer electronics (cameras, camcorders, video game systems) don't support exFAT, either.
If you need to transfer files between your Mac and one of these non-PC devices, you're almost certainly going to have to format your flash drive in FAT32 instead. The Bottom Line Here's a basic rundown of which format we recommend for your USB flash drive, broken down by use case.
If you absolutely, positively will only be working with Macs and no other system, ever: Use Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If you need to transfer files larger than 4 GB between Macs and PCs: Use exFAT. In all other cases: Use MS-DOS (FAT), aka FAT32.
How do I format or convert my USB stick to FAT32 on Mac? ' Hello, I have a 64 GB USB flash drive, storing with 20GB of files. Some programs on my computer only accept FAT32 file system for saving files to an external storage device. And I want to save those files to the USB flash drive. So here comes the problem that I must format or convert the USB disk first. How to format or convert my USB flash drive to FAT32 on my Mac computer?
Does anyone know a solution to this problem?' According to most solutions provided online, the way to format USB flash drive to FAT32 on Mac computer always results in data loss issue. If you prefer a safe and reliable way to convert your USB flash drive or external hard drive/SD card to FAT32, follow steps on this page to accomplish this task on your own now. Extract/Backup USB data before formatting The best solution to this problem that you may try is to backup or extract existing data from your USB flash drive to another safe storage device in advance. Here you can try these recommended options to extract USB data: Option 1.
Drag USB data to another device on Mac. Connect USB and another storage device to your Mac computer. Open both USB and another storage device on Mac. Drag files and data from USB to another storage device. Scan and extract all data from USB with Mac data recovery freeware recommended If you prefer a thorough way to extracting all existing and even lost files from your USB to a safe location on Mac, professional - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free for Mac is available to help. This software supports to full scan and find all existing files and lost data on your USB flash drive. You can directly extract all USB data to another location or storage device on Mac in 3 simple steps: Note: If your USB flash drive has more than 2GB files, please activate this free data recovery software into a Pro version so to restore and extract unlimited data from USB drive.
Launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac Free and select the location of your USB drive. Click Next to continue. Let the program scan and find your USB files, including lost data with two scanning modes - Quick Scan/Deep Scan.
Preview and choose all found USB files, click Recover to extract and save in a safe device/location on Mac. Format/Convert USB to FAT32 After extracting or backing up USB data to a safety device, you can now try methods in the below to convert USB to FAT32 now: Method 1. Format USB to FAT32 with Disk Utility (Erase all data) To format USB to FAT32 with Disk Utility will erase all data on the flash drive, so before you doing so, please do remember to check whether you have saved useful data to another secure device in advance. Here are the detail tips to format USB to FAT32 now: 1. Connect the USB flash drive to your Mac computer.
2.Go to Applications Utilities Double click and open Disk Utility. Select your USB flash drive on the sidebar, choose Erase.
Rename the USB flash drive, choose the format as MS-DOS (FAT) for Format, Master Boot Record for Scheme. Then click Erase. Wait for the process to complete, then you’ll get an empty new USB flash drive with FAT32 as the file system. You can reuse it for saving data again. Convert/format USB flash drive to FAT32 by using Mac Command Line 1. Connect your USB flash drive to your Mac computer. Hit cmd + space to run Spotlight, type: terminal and hit Enter.
Type:diskutil list and find out which disk is your USB drive. In the below picture, you can see that /dev/disk2 is the USB drive. Type: sudo diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 MBRFormat /dev/disk2.
sudo gives you user right. Diskutil calls disk utility program. eraseDisk commands to format. FAT32 sets the file system. MBRFormat tells disk utility to format with a Master Boot Record. /dev/disk2 is the location of the USB drive.
Wait for the process to complete and after this, you can type: diskutil list in command again to check if the formatting has been successful. After this, you should be able to use USB with FAT32 file system to save files again. Question: How to restore lost files after formatting USB to FAT32 on Mac? Some of you may have the same question that if you’ve forgotten to extract files before formatting USB, how can you restore the lost files by formatting USB flash drive? The reason why formatted/erased data on USB or other storage devices on Mac computer can be still restored is that those formatted data are still on the storage devices. Only the entries got removed, being marked as empty on devices.
You can refer to this page: on Mac as a guide with the help of EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard now.