How To Format Flash Drive For Mac Os
by Shirly Chen, updated on 2019-07-08 to Mac Data Wipe
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USB drives and external hard drives on macOS Catalina are used for storing and backing up important data such as photos, videos, audios, images, notes, messages, music files, PDF files, Word documents, among other files. Sometimes, we delete some of these files because we do not need them, but they remain somewhere and can be retrieved from the same device or using a data recovery software. In some cases, we want to carry out this task in a permanent way, but we do not have any idea about how to do it. Here, we will show you how to permanently format and delete your files and so prevent a possible data recovery.
Mac Os Format Fat32
Three ways to format USB flash drive, external hard drive on macOS Catalina
If you only use a Mac computer, you can format your thumb drive so it can work on Windows systems. Connect the thumb drive to your Mac. Launch Disk Utility, press Command+Space then type: disk. Admittedly, the Mac OS X platform is fundamentally different from the Windows platform. Coming from Windows to macOS can be somewhat confusing, even on the little things like formatting a hard drive, USB flash drive, or SSD. Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled),” or your preferred format type. The former option can help ensure that the USB drive is made fully compatible with your Mac, since most USB drives are preformatted for Windows computers by default. 8 Type a name for the USB drive in the “Name” field. How to format a usb flash drive on a windows 10 pc for mac os x & windows pc compatibility If you need to transfer files larger than 4 GB between macs and wi.
So, If you wish to use the hard drive for Mac, you need to format the external media in Mac OS X native file system called “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” filesystem. This will ensure full Mac compatibility of a new external hard drive or flash drive.
There are many tools can help you format USB flash drive, portable hard drive, memory card or other storage device on macOS Catalina. Here, we will show you three ways to format USB flash drive, external hard drive, etc on macOS Catalina.
1. Format USB flash drive/external hard drive with Disk Utility on macOS Catalina
Disk Utility is a built-in disk management application on macOS Catalina. You can run it to format the USB flash drive, external hard drive on macOS Catalina. But, the formatted data can be recovered by Mac data recovery software.
2. Format USB flash drive/external hard drive with MacClean360 on macOS Catalina
MacClean360 also offers disk management tool, disk manager. This tool can help you securely and quickly format USB flash drive, external hard drive under macOS Catalina. The formatted data also can be recovered by Mac data recovery software.
3. Format USB flash drive/external hard drive and permanently wipe data on macOS Catalina
If we are planning to sell, donate or dispose our USB flash drive or external hard drive to another person, we should format them to clean up all data, even this is also an option if we want to recover their complete storage. Maybe, we do not know how to format our device properly and permanently to avoid retrieving our private files. here, we will help you choose the best way to format/wipe your device on macOS Catalina; you can use DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac, which is highly recommended by users.
DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac can help you format USB flash drive, External hard drive or other device on macOS Catalina. And it will permanently wipe all data from the USB flash drive or device. Once the USB flash drive/external hard drive is formatted by this software, all data on the USB flash drive/external hard drive will be gone forever, can’t be recovered by any data recovery method. So, before you format your USB flash drive or external hard drive with DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac, you’d better back up your data to a safe location.
The steps to format USB flash drive/external hard drive on macOS Catalina are pretty simple.
Step 1: Download DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac.
Download and install this disk formatting tool for macOS Catalina. Then run it from Launchpad. And connect the USB flash drive or external hard drive with your Mac.
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Step 2: Format and wipe the USB flash drive/external hard drive on macOS Catalina.
Choose mode “Wipe Hard Drive”, then choose the targeted device and click on “Wipe Now” button. Then the selected USB flash drive or external hard drive will be formatted and all data on the selected device will be permanently erased.
The three ways above can help you securely and easily format USB flash drive, external hard drive on macOS Catalina. We strongly recommend DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac. It will help you format and wipe data before you sell, donate, or give away your hard drive, USB flash drive, memory card, digital camera, portable hard drive, etc.
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This simple guide will teach you How to Format a Flash Drive on Mac. Not only this, we will help you pick the best file system for your usb flash drive that you are planning to use on a Mac.
Majority of 49.4% of desktop and laptop computer users in the world use Windows operating system. In contrast, only 27.4% of users use MacOS, obviously for their apple computer. That’s the reason why most of the flash drives in the market are available in Fat32 or NTFS formats which are the most preferred format for windows.
Although the first one, Fat32 is completely compatible with both MacOS as well as Windows, it has some limitations. Fat32 can store files only up to 4 GB of size. The latter one, NTFS is mostly used on the Windows operating system and not an optimal option for MacOS. Extra work is needed to use NTFS on MacOS. If you want to use your flash drive solely for MacOS, it is highly recommended to format your flash drive.
Here, pop-ups the question: How to format a flash drive on a mac?
Contents
- 1 Before you format a flash drive
- 1.1 Check flash Drive’s File System
- 2 How to format a flash drive on Mac?
Before you format a flash drive
MacOS supports HFS plus file system. HFS stands for Hierarchical File System.
Apple introduced this file system in 1985 to replace the existing Macintosh File System or MFS. HFS filesystem is modified into HFS plus (Modernly called as MacOS Extended). Before you format a flash drive it is suggested to know what file system your flash drive is in.
Check flash Drive’s File System
You don’t need to do anything special to know your flash drive’s file system. There are 2 ways you can do this.
Method 1: Using Finder
Plug in your flash drive. Now open the Finder and look for your USB device. Then right-click on the drive’s name. Select “Get Info” from the list of options opened.
A new window will open. Just to the right of “Format” is your drive’s file system.
Method 2: Using Disk utility app
Open the Disk Utility app from the utility folder available in the application. Your drive will be on the left column of the window. Click on the partition. Here you can check the current format of your flash drive.
If your flash drive’s file system is MS-DOS or ExFAT you can use it as it is without further formatting. But if it is NTFS, format your flash drive to make it completely compatible with MacOS.
How to format a flash drive on Mac?
Disk Utility application in MacOS is the best option to format a flash drive on MacOS. You can launch this app in two ways.
Step 1: Press Space while holding your command button. A search box will open. Type Disk Utility in the search box and press enter. Alternatively, Open the Finder window and select applications on the left sidebar. Navigate to Utilities and then Disk Utilities.
How To Format Flash Drive For Mac Os Versions
Step 2: Search for your flash drive on the sidebar of the Disk Utility app and select it by clicking on its name.
Step 3: Now Click the “Erase” button which is located just below the title bar of the window which says “Disk Utility”. This will erase your whole drive and make it a single partition.
Here you can change the name of your USB drive if you wish. This name will be visible on other devices as well if you plug your flash drive into them. Just below the Name section, you can see a section called “Format”.
You will need to choose a format option to change your flash drive’s file system. But which format to choose is the big question now! No need to worry. Read the description of each format given below and choose the format of your choice.
Types of filesystems
Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
This format is considered as default file system format of the Mac OS X drives. It also supports OS X Lion, like Versions. This format will allow you to use your flash drive on Mac without any limitations.
With Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, you can setup OS X startup drive. Make sure you have right files and know how to do it. If you have any issues with a built-in drive you can boot from the external disk. This file system format is highly recommended for MacOS. But you cannot write this flash drive from windows PC once you have formatted it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). You can read files though.
OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
Go for this type of filesystem if you really need it for some reason. For OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled), the word “File” is different than “file”. It means it’s case sensitive as the name suggests.
OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted)
Same as filesystem just mentioned above but of course with encryption.
OS X Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)
To use a flash drive with this filesystem you will have to set up a password & enter it whenever you plug in your drive into any device.
MS-DOS (FAT)
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This is just a name for the FAT32 filesystem in Disk Utility application. FAT32 supports to almost all of the operating systems in the world. This allows you to transfer files from one operating system to other. The best thing about this filesystem is its support to video game systems which include Xbox 360 and PlayStation. This filesystem can be called a universal system. The limitation about FAT32 filesystem is it doesn’t allow files which are bigger than 4 GB in size and also you cannot create a startup drive unlike Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
ExFAT
This is a new type of filesystem and it supports MacOS X 10.6.5 and later. It is same as FAT32 but it supports files larger than 4 GB. As this filesystem is relatively new, it does not on relatively older versions of Mac OS X. If you don’t use any older version of the operating system, you can use this type of filesystem.
Use ExFAT for this tutorial if you wish to use your flash drive on windows as well on MacOS.
Step 4: For this tutorial, you can ignore the Scheme option which we use if you wish to boot from your flash drive. Click on erase button to format your flash drive.
Voila! You have formatted your flash drive now. You can eject drive by right-clicking on its name in the left sidebar and click on “Eject”.
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I hope this article has helped. If you are still facing problems or have doubts on how to format USB drive on Mac, then simply comment below.