- OS X can default read NTFS disks, but not write to them. Possible solutions/options: NTFS for Mac OS X (10 Days Trial): I use this one, and it does the job very well. When the driver is installed, you format your NTFS disks with Disk Utility where you select Windows NT Filesystem as the format.
- Fully Clean and Format Disk Using CMD Command in DiskPart Step 1. On Windows 10, press Windows + X, select 'Search', and type command prompt, right-click on it and choose 'Run as administrator'.
Formatting in context of USB or Hard Drives means deleting everything from that drive and rebuilding the file system so that we can use it with an Operating System. And we usually perform formatting in our USB or External Hard Drive when we want to get rid of viruses, or we want to clean the disk as it was when we purchased it. Also when we buy a new USB or Hard Drive, it often comes with windows compatible not the mac so formatting it even needed in this case. So in this post, I will tell you 'How to Format USB on Mac?'.
How to Format USB on MAC?
If you never formatted a USB drive then don't worry it is effortless. And here I will tell you two answers to this question that 'How to Format USB on Mac?'. First, we will go with the straightforward way of doing it; then we will move to the easy way. 😉
So first, we will use the Disk Utility program, which is a GUI and very straightforward so that any kid can do it. Imac 10 11 6. Then in the next method, we will format USB drive from mac terminal. So let's start.
Format USB on Mac using Disk Utility
The graphical Disk Utility tool can't yet format drives as APFS. However, Apple's documentation notes that you can use the diskutil command to format a partition or disk image as APFS. First, figure out which the device identifier of the disk you want to format. To do this, open a Terminal window and run the following command. Sudo su umount /dev/sdb1 fdisk /dev/sdb Options to select: ‘d' to delete the partition ‘n' to create a new partition ‘p' for primary ‘1' for partition number ‘Enter' for first cylinder (default 1) ‘Enter' for last cylinder (default of max size) ‘t' for type ‘L' to list codes, and enter code for HPFS/NTFS.
- Connect the USB Drive to your Mac. (This is obvious we need a USB first, then only we can format it 😛 )
- Now we need to open Disk Utility. (Here I will give you one more tip. To open any program in your Mac just press the command + spacebar. It will start the Spotlight Search, now from here you can search for any program, but now we need Disk Utility, so search it).
- Now, on the Disk Utility window you will see External Drives on the left.
- Here I have my USB Drive connected, and its name is No Name. In the top we have options like First Aid, Partition, Erase, Restore, Unmount. To format the drive we need to click on the Erase Button.
Format USB on Mac
- Here, we have two options, the first one is the Name that you can set for your USB Drive. The second one is the Format. If you want to make it windows compatible you need to select MS-DOS (FAT) here. And you can also use the Mac OS Format. So its up to you what you want.
- Now, just click on the Erase Button to complete the format.
- And thats it. Your drive is formatted.
Mac Os X Disk
For formatting any External Hard Drive, we can follow the same steps.
Format USB Drive Mac using Terminal
We also have a Command Line Disk Utility interface in Mac. And we can use it to format the USB on Mac as well. Now lets see how we do this. Google disk linux.
- First open the terminal (Again press command + space, write terminal and hit enter).
- In terminal now type the following command.
- The above command will display all the disk connected with your machine.
- Here the USB Drive that is connected, is disk2 and we will format this disk only. To format the USB drive here we will write the following command.
- In the above command eraseDisk is the format command. Then comes JHFS+ is the Disk Type which is Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then Belal is the name of the disk that will be assigned after formatting. Finally we are writing the name of the disk that we need to format, which disk2 is in this case. Now hit enter.
- And the disk is formatted. 😉 Super Easy, isn't it?
So that's it for this tutorial friends if you got some problems then tell me in the comments. And if you think this post was useful for you, or it helped you in any way, then I request you to please SHARE it with your friends. I hope you got the answer very clearly that 'How to Format USB on Mac?'. So thank you, guys. Will catch you in the next post.
Disk Utility User Guide
Disk Utility on Mac supports several file system formats:
Apple File System (APFS): The file system used by macOS 10.13 or later.
Mac OS Extended: The file system used by macOS 10.12 or earlier.
MS-DOS (FAT) and ExFAT: File systems that are compatible with Windows.
Apple File System (APFS)
Apple File System (APFS), the default file system for Mac computers using macOS 10.13 or later, features strong encryption, space sharing, snapshots, fast directory sizing, and improved file system fundamentals. While APFS is optimized for the Flash/SSD storage used in recent Mac computers, it can also be used with older systems with traditional hard disk drives (HDD) and external, direct-attached storage. macOS 10.13 or later supports APFS for both bootable and data volumes.
APFS allocates disk space within a container (partition) on demand. When a single APFS container has multiple volumes, the container's free space is shared and is automatically allocated to any of the individual volumes as needed. If desired, you can specify reserve and quota sizes for each volume. Each volume uses only part of the overall container, so the available space is the total size of the container, minus the size of all the volumes in the container.
Choose one of the following APFS formats for Mac computers using macOS 10.13 or later.
APFS: Uses the APFS format. Os x yosemite download location. Choose this option if you don't need an encrypted or case-sensitive format.
APFS (Encrypted): Uses the APFS format and encrypts the volume.
APFS (Case-sensitive): Uses the APFS format and is case-sensitive to file and folder names. For example, folders named 'Homework' and 'HOMEWORK' are two different folders.
APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted): Uses the APFS format, is case-sensitive to file and folder names, and encrypts the volume. For example, folders named 'Homework' and 'HOMEWORK' are two different folders.
You can easily add or delete volumes in APFS containers. Each volume within an APFS container can have its own APFS format—APFS, APFS (Encrypted), APFS (Case-sensitive), or APFS (Case-sensitive, Encrypted).
Mac OS Extended
Choose one of the following Mac OS Extended file system formats for compatibility with Mac computers using macOS 10.12 or earlier.
Mac OS Extended (Journaled): Uses the Mac format (Journaled HFS Plus) to protect the integrity of the hierarchical file system. Choose this option if you don't need an encrypted or case-sensitive format.
Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted): Uses the Mac format, requires a password, and encrypts the partition.
Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled): Uses the Mac format and is case-sensitive to folder names. For example, folders named 'Homework' and 'HOMEWORK' are two different folders.
Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted): Uses the Mac format, is case-sensitive to folder names, requires a password, and encrypts the partition.
Windows-compatible formats
Os X Disk Repair
Choose one of the following Windows-compatible file system formats if you are formatting a disk to use with Windows.
MS-DOS (FAT): Use for Windows volumes that are 32 GB or less.
ExFAT: Use for Windows volumes that are over 32 GB.
