How to format a drive on a Mac os

It’s been a long time since anyone cared about a file’s format. It’s still an issue when you’re trying to put files on a USB thumb drive to hand off to someone else. If you’re both Mac users, great; Mac and Windows in the mix, you might be tempted to pick FAT32 when formatting that thumb drive.

But FAT32 is distinctly out of date. Designed for an earlier time, it can’t handle files larger than 4GB. Instead, pick ExFAT, its replacement (and still quite old), best used on drives of 32GB or larger capacity.

Formatting a drive as ExFAT ensures you have a copy of any data on the drive before formatting, which erases the drive’s contents. These steps describe how to format a drive as ExFAT:

Attach the drive to your Mac.
Launch Disk Utility (from Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility).
Select the drive in the left-hand sidebar.
Click Erase.
From the Format menu, select ExFAT.
From the Scheme menu, select Master Boot Record.
Click Erase and follow the prompts to confirm.

Table of Contents

How to format a drive on a Mac

This is the way to organize a drive utilizing a Macintosh – including how to design a drive for Windows and Macintosh so the items can be perused on the two stages, and what configuration to use for Time Machine.

There are several reasons why you may want to format a drive. Perhaps you want to sell your Mac and ensure that nobody can access your data. Or perhaps you want to back up your data to an external drive. You may want to copy something onto a drive so that you can share it with a PC or another Mac, for example. Alternatively, you may have purchased a drive to use with your Mac only to discover that it is pre-formatted for Windows.

Fortunately, Disk Utility, built right into macOS, can help. And it’s easy to use.

The post provides an overview of the best storage devices available now. You can also check out How to install and run Windows on a Mac for additional information. Before we begin, you should know the most critical choice of all, which format to select. Furthermore, you can also learn how to use Disk Utility on a Mac from here. You might want to use Disk Utility for a variety of reasons, including making a bootable macOS install drive (see here) and if you’re performing a clean install of macOS.

Which file format should I use?

The file formats are numerous, and the one that’s appropriate for your situation depends greatly on what you want to do with your drive. We’ll list them below, and you may select the one that suits you.

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How to format a drive on a Mac os

APFS (Apple Document Framework) – This is the new record framework that Apple purchased for Macintoshes with High Sierra and it will be the default assuming you are utilizing that adaptation of macOS. There are various things that are great about it -, for example, it being more proficient and more solid. You can pick a scrambled form and a case-delicate rendition. In any case, it won’t be meaningful or usable by a Macintosh that isn’t running High Sierra, and Windows or Linux machines will not have the option to peruse or compose by the same token.

What’s more, it right now just chips away at SSDs or Streak stockpiling. Peruse a portion of the great stuff about APFS here. For the present, we’d exhort against arranging in APFS in light of the fact that it will not be discernible by Macintoshes that aren’t running High Sierra, however, this may not make any difference to you.

macOS Expanded (Journaled) (otherwise called HFS+) – APFS supplanted MacOS Stretched out as the default document framework on the Macintosh when Apple sent off High Sierra in 2017. In the event that your Macintosh isn’t refreshed to High Sierra, it will offer MacOS Reached out as the default.

There’s likewise the choice of MacOS Broadened (Journaled, Encoded) which is a decent decision in the event that you are probably going to heft your PC or outside cruise all over and don’t believe anybody should get to the items in the drive would it be a good idea for you coincidentally lose it. You can scramble your drive and require a secret phrase to get to it.

How to format a drive on a Mac os

There’s likewise a choice of MacOS Broadened (Case-delicate, Journaled, Encoded) assuming you are probably going to have document names that require capital letters. Windows can peruse HFS+ drives yet can’t keep in touch with them.

Because Mac, Linux, and Windows systems can read and write to FAT32, you may want to use it if you frequently share drives with PC-owning friends or colleagues and want them to have access to the files you place on the drive. Despite the fact that it’s an older file system, it can support files up to 4GB or less. It’s not adequate for copying movie files, for example, due to no security and a higher risk of disk errors.

Both Windows and Mac can read drives formatted with ExFAT or FAT32. The difference between the two is that ExFAT can store files over 4GB. NTFS is the default file system for Windows. macOS can read NTFS, but it cannot write to it. Third-party tools may be able to accomplish that, however.

Ways to format an external drive for Mac

Here’s how to format a drive if you are planning to use it with a Mac.

How to format a drive on a Mac os

Launch Disk Utility. Either head to Applications > Utilities, or tap Command + Space and start typing Disk Utility.
Once Disk Utility is open you’ll see the list of available drives on the left. Choose the drive you’d like to format. NOTE that formatting your drive will erase the contents, so make sure you back it up first!
Click on the Erase option from the four options available in the main window.
Disk Utility will automatically choose the format for you. This may be APFS, or it may be Mac OS Extended (Journaled) depending on how the drive is currently formatted and whether you using macOS High Sierra or an older version of the OS. If you’d like to use something else click on the Formatting options to reveal the drop-down window. Choose the format you require depending on how you intend to use the formatted drive (see above for more information about the format types).
The next step is to give the drive a name. This can be anything you like, but choose something obvious that will give you a hint as to what’s on there.
Next, click the Security Options button. This will bring up another window that enables you to choose how you’d like the drive to be formatted, with a slider ranging from Fastest to Most Secure. This is an important step if you want to make sure that any files currently on the drive
are safely erased. The fastest will erase the drive by removing the header information
but will leave the underlying files intact, although they will be hidden. This means you or someone else could resurrect the files easily using data-recovery software, which isn’t necessarily a good idea. Move the slider to the second option where it says “This option writes a single pass of zeros over the entire disk.” This will overwrite the entire drive once.
For higher security, continue moving to the slider to the right. The next step will give you the option to overwrite the drive three times. Moving it the entire way to Most Secure will overwrite the drive seven times – but you’ll have to wait quite a while (depending on the size of the drive) before it will be available for you to use again
Click on Erase and wait while the contents are erased and the drive is made ready. A progress bar will show how the formatting of your drive is going and how long, roughly, it will take to complete.
Now copy your files onto the newly formatted drive.