To format an external hard drive for Mac with Time Machine, you must follow the steps below. Step 1 Open Finder, Applications, then go to Utilities and Disk Utility. Step 2 Follow the steps above to format the drive, and then you can use it with Time Machine on your Mac system. Part 3: Bonus Tip – Data Recovery from Formatted Hard Drive on Mac. Fortunately, while formatting your flash drive on a Mac is different than other operating systems it still remains a pretty easy task! If you don't need any help, then here are the quick steps you can follow to formatting your flash drive. If you need some assistance, we.
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. 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).
2. 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.
3. Once you’ve copied any files you need from the USB drive to your Mac, go to Applications>Utilities and double-click on Disk Utility.
4. Click on the USB drive in the sidebar and then choose Erase from the toolbar at the top of the window.
5. In the window that drops down type a name for the formatted drive in the box next to Name.
6. Choose a format from the dropdown menu.
7. If you have previously stored sensitive data on the drive, click the Security tab.
8. 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.
9. 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 CleanMyMac’s File Shredder. It’s specifically designed to securely delete sensitive data and will render it unrecoverable. You can download CleanMyMac X for free here.
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.
2. Go to Applications>Utilities and launch Disk Utility.
3. Click on the USB drive in the sidebar in Disk Utility.
4. Click Erase in the Disk Utility toolbar.
5. Type in a name for the formatted disk.
6. Click on the Format menu and choose either MS-DOS (FAT32) or ExFAT.
7. Click Erase.
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 CleanMyDrive 2. 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.
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May 12,2020 • Filed to: Flash Drive Recovery • Proven solutions
Not every USB flash drive available out there can be used with your Mac system right away after buying it. There are some flash drives that need to be first formatted before you store data on them. Mac system provides support for different file systems.
If you find that the USB flash drive you’ve purchased isn’t compatible with your Mac computer, then you need to format to file system supported by your system. The main reason behind why all USB drives aren’t compatible with Mac is because most of them are designed to use on Windows OS, which operates on the FAT32 system. On the other hand, Mac systems operate on either APFS or Mac OS Extended.
The good news is that there is no need to panic if you’ve purchased a USB flash drive running on a different format than what is supported by your Mac.
Here, in this article, we will show you how to format USB on Mac to a compatible file system. As formatting leads to data loss and that’s why we will also introduce you with best USB drive data recovery tool you can use to recover your lost data.
Part 1: How to Format USB on Mac?
Formatting a USB flash drive on Mac is a little bit lengthy process but yields the desired result. Also, before you process with the process, make sure that the device has no important data on it. This process will erase all the data from it. Thus, copy all important files that you need from the drive to your computer or another external storage device.
Now, let’s learn how to format the flash drive on Mac:
Step 1 Start the process by plugging the USB drive into a USB socket. If you’ve MacBook Pro or latest MacBook, then you need a USB-C to USB Adapter.
Step 2 Next, launch the new Finder window and then, click the drive. And move to “Applications”>” Utilities”> and here, double-tap on “Disk Utility”.
Step 3 After that, tap on the USB drive in the sidebar and next, you need to select “Erase” option from the toolbar located at the top of the current window.
Step 4 Now, a window will drop down and here, enter a specific name for the formatted drive. After that, choose the type of format you would like to have from the drop-down menu.
Step 5 If the flash drive has some kind of sensitive data, then click “Security Options”. This will enable you to select how securely you would like to have data to be deleted.
Step 6 Thereafter, you need to move the slider to right. The further you move the slider, the more passes the delete/erase feature will make the meaning more securely data will be deleted. But, this will boost the format time too.
Step 7 Finally, tap on “Ok” and next, choose Erase.
That’s how to format the flash disk on Mac. As you can see that it is quite a time-consuming process, and you need to follow every step to get the desired results.
Part 2: Which Format to Choose When Formatting?
Well, formatting USB flash drive isn’t a complex task, but the real struggle starts when it comes to choosing the file format. As per the currently running Mac version, macOS High Sierra or older, there are two options available for file format - APFS and Mac OS Extended. Following are some factors that will help you determine the best USB format for Mac according to your needs:
- If you are using a Mac running with macOS older than High Sierra, then it is important to format thumb drive with the Mac OS Extended format. The reason for doing this is that if you reformat a disk in the APFS file format, it will fail to load in your Mac system.
- If you want to format a flash drive on your Mac, then go for the APFS format because they are solid-state drive (SSD) optimized. More importantly, even if you plan to reformat a hard drive, then APFS is a more reliable and fast option.
- If you want to use USB flash drive for Time Machine backups, then you should consider Mac OS Extended format. The reason is that APFS disk does not provide supports for Time Machine backups. Moreover, if you prefer this format, then it will provide you with the option for reformatting USB drive using Mac OS Extended format.
- However, you can backup an APFS formatted disk or drive to a Mac OS Extended Time machine drive.
Keep the above points in your mind while formatting a USB flash drive to make sure that you choose the right file format.
Part 3: How to Format USB Flash Drive to FAT32 on Mac?
If you want to use a USB drive on both Mac and Windows, then you need to format the drive to the format supported by both systems. And FAT32 is the format that both Mac and Windows PC support. In other words, you can read and write FAT32 file format on both the operating system.
Moreover, there are a lot of users who want to use the USB drive on both Windows and Mac and there are also others who want to use it as a storage device for TV shows, and that’s why reformatting to FAT32 format is necessary.
However, no matter for what purpose you need to format the USB drive to FAT32, there are two methods available to how to format flash drive to FAT32 on Mac:
Method 1: Disk Utility
Here’s what you need to do format USB drive to FAT32 with disk utility:
Step 1 To start with, connect USB drive that you want to format to your Mac.
Step 2 Then, select “Applications”>” Utilities”. Next, open the Disk Utility.
Step 3 Now, you need to choose the USB drive from the sidebar of disk utility. Next, select “Erase” from the toolbar of disk utility.
Step 4 Now, provide a name to the formatted disk and choose a FAT32 file format from the menu.
Step 5 Finally, choose Erase and in a while, your drive or disk will be reformatted to the FAT32 format.
Method 2: Terminal Command Line
Generally, users prefer disk utility to format a disk or drive. But, users who are quite good at using the terminal in macOS can also format the drive from the command line on Mac.
Here’s how to how to format USB stick for Mac and Windows PC using the terminal command line:
Step 1 First, go to the “Applications”>” Utilities”. Here, double-click the “Terminal” application to run it.
Step 2 Now, you need to run the command i.e. Diskutil list. This will provide a list of all the mounted drives on your Mac system.
Step 3 After finding the drive you want to format, you need to copy its identifier for the next command. Here, you also need to choose a name and format type.
The next command you need to run in the command line - Diskutil eraseDisk FILESYSTEM DISKNAME DISKIDENTIFIER.
Let’s take an example - the drive you want to format has “/dev/disk5s2” as its identifier and the file system, in this case, is FAT32 and you named the drive as “Full”. So, the command you will run in the terminal becomes - Diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 FULL /dev/disk5s2.
That’s how format flash drive on Mac to FAT32 file system using terminal command line works. No doubt, it is a little bit complex for users who aren’t much familiar with the command line. That’s why this method is recommended for those who know how to use the terminal on Mac.
Once you’re able to format your USB drive to FAT32, you can use it on both Mac and Windows PC. If you realize that you’ve lost some important files after formatting the drive, don’t be panic. The next part of our guide will help you to get back lost data from a USB drive.
Part 4: Best USB Drive Data Recovery Software
Formatting a flash drive on Mac delete all data stored in the drive. To recover lost data from the USB drive, you need to use professional USB data recovery software like iSkysoft.
Formatting Thumb Drive For Mac
With the help of this software, you can recover various file types including photos, audio, video, documents, etc from any storage device, which include removable drives like USB. It is powerful enough to help you restore data under various data loss situations like accidental deletion, formatting, virus attack, etc. The best part of the software is that it provides support for all common file systems, which include FAT, APFS, etc.
Recoverit (IS)
A Life Saver to Solve Your Data Loss Problems!
- It is compatible with both Windows and Mac operating system.
- It supports a large number of storage device type including hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, etc.
- All major types of files can be recovered including music, images, video, documents, emails, and archives.
- It has a deep scan features for in-depth scanning of the hard drive for searching files to recover.
Get Recoverit (IS) from its official site on your Mac, and follow the below steps to recover lost data after you format USB to use on Mac and PC:
Step 1 Choose a location
After installing the iSkysoft on your Mac computer, run it and connect your USB flash drive to the computer. Then, select the connected drive as a partition or location from where you lost your data.
Step 2 San the location
Formatting Flash Drive For Mac
Next, the software will initiate the scan process to locate the files you’ve lost in the selected location. This may take several minutes to complete the scan process.
Step 3 Preview and recover data
Once the scan process completes, preview data and choose the desired files you want to recover. Finally, click “Recover” button to get back the selected ones into the safe location on Mac.
Conclusion:
Formatting Flash Drive For Mac
We hope that this guide helps you learn how to format USB on MacBook. There are many situations when you need to use the drive on both Mac and Windows PC. In such cases, you can make it possible by simply formatting the drive. Most users don’t back up their data before formatting and thus, end up losing their important files from the drive. Luckily, Recoverit (IS) can help you to perform USB drive recovery to get back the lost data.