Step 1: Insert your USB drive into your Mac. Here’s how you can format your USB Drive on Mac. With the Disk Utility, you can check available storage on your device, repair any storage errors using First Aid, and format storage devices like USB Drives, Hard Drives, and SD Cards on your Mac. Format USB Drive on Mac Using Disk Utilityĭisk Utility is an built-in program available for macOS users to manage the storage devices on Mac. If you are switching from a Mac to Windows PC or vice versa it’s a good idea to format your USB drive to change its file format for better compatibility.īut before you format a USB drive, you should remember to back up your data on cloud storage like iCloud, Google Drive or OneDrive. If you have a limited number of USB drives, formatting one of them will give you the peace of mind for storing more data when required. If you use a USB drive frequently for transferring or storing your data, you should consider formatting it to remove files you no longer require.

This post will show you the two best ways to format a USB drive on Mac. NOTE: If the above steps do NOT resolve the problem, please back up your data and request a replacement using our online web form.Formatting a USB drive on your Mac can easily be done using the built-in apps. Some older operating systems must have a patch installed before they can use the exFAT file system. NOTE: MacOS 10.6.2 or higher is required for exFAT file system. NOTE: exFAT can be used on flash drives or memory cards to transfer files larger than 4GB. NOTE: exFAT is used on SDXC card (64GB and higher). When finished, the drive will be formatted and repartitioned successfully.

Choose Master Boot Record for the Schemeĥ.

Choose exFAT or MS-DOS (FAT) for the format.

Choose how you would like to format the drive

Select the upper level of the drive you would like to format and click the Erase buttonĤ. In the top menu bar, go to View, and choose Show All Devicesģ. Please See Answer 20985: How to access Disk Utility macOSĢ. Instructions below are for 10.13.x (High Sierra)ġ. Select this capacity.Ħ. Verify Volume Format is set to MS-DOS file system or exFAT, Scheme is set to “Master Boot Record” ( Do NOT select GUID Partition Map) then click Erase.

Select the capacity of the drive respective to the one containing the device you wish to format then click the Erase tab.Įxample: If the drive is called 'NO NAME', directly above that, you should see the drive capacity of 'XXXX'. On the left side of the window are the drives connected to the computer. Click the Applications folder - if using a Finder Window Applications will be in the left side menu.ĥ. Double-click on Macintosh HD - or in the Finder menu click File > New Finder WindowĢ. Instructions below are for 10.11.x (El Capitan) and 10.12.x (Sierra)ġ. WARNING: Formatting will erase all data on the device.

Formatting usb drive on mac