Note: Please start up from macOS Recovery and then choose Disk Utility in the macOS Utilities window if you really want to format the startup disk or startup volume. Now that you’ve learned exFAT is the ideal file system to go. Go to the Applications -> select Utilities folder -> double click on Disk Utility. ![]() This is because an NTFS-based drive can be read by macOS but you can’t write data to the drive. Click the Erase button and the drive will start formatting. Select the format Mac OS Extended (HFS+), MS-DOS (FAT32), or exFAT then name the drive. ![]() Select your external hard drive or USB flash drive from the list on the left. Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities). You may notice that NTFS is marked “Partially” under the Compatible with macOS column. Format a drive using Disk Utility on a Mac. So, you should format your storage drive with exFAT instead of FAT32, assuming that all devices you want to use the drive support exFAT. Therefore, it’s perfect for a USB flash drive or external disk, especially when you need to save files more than 4GB in size. See the table below for more info.Īs you can see, exFAT is the only file system that works with all versions of Windows and macOS and does not have any max file size or partition-size limits. Note that there is another file system called FAT32 that pretty much does the same thing but with one major flaw. In other words, you can access the drive and transfer data without any hassles. What do I mean? If your disk was initially formatted to NTFS, the data on your drive can’t be read or written if you use the USB on a Mac computer.įortunately, there is a file system (actually two, I’ll explain later on) that you can format your flash drive to be fully compatible with Mac and PC. The most likely choice is exFAT, which we’ll go into. That’s useful if you need to get some data from a friend’s Windows disk, but if you use both Windows and macOS, you’ll need a different option. NTFS disks can be read by macOS, but not written to. If you have a USB drive, and you plan to use it on both a Mac and PC, things can get a bit tricky here. The main Windows disk format, NTFS, isn’t supported by macOS.
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