#Format usb for mac with windows how to
#Format usb for mac with windows mac os
#Format usb for mac with windows drivers
#Format usb for mac with windows portable
#Format usb for mac with windows windows

Change Format dropdown to exFAT in the pop-up dialog box.

Click on Partition icon in the Disk Utility toolbar.

Do not click Macintosh HD! It’s your primary disk, and you don’t want to break it.

Find the drive in the left Sidebar window and click on it.

Start Disk Utility with Spotlight Search.

In this example, I am using my old Seagate drive. If you have data on the drive and do not want to lose it then read the paragraph about not losing data below. Warning: This section assumes that you are planning to format a brand new drive.

#Format usb for mac with windows how to

Find drive format in Finder How to Format External Hard Drive For Mac and PC in Mac: Check Format line under the General section. Next, select it and use Command + I key combination to bring up the information dialog. Start the Finder and locate the disk in the Sidebar. How to know which file system is on my external drive? One way to find is by using the Finder app. So if you have an external drive formatted as APFS, HFS+ or NTFS you can format it as exFAT either from Mac or Windows. And as I described above, there is no reason to chose FAT32 unless you have an MS-DOS machine. But users who need to transfer data between PCs and Macs have to choose between FAT32 or exFAT. I don’t know if Microsoft is arrogant and never tried to support file systems other than their own, or Apple wanted to lure PC users so much. Which format is compatible with Mac and Windows? APFS was introduced first with macOS High Sierra, so if you have a new Mac, its startup disk is most likely under APFS.

#Format usb for mac with windows mac os

APFS and Mac OS ExtendedĪPFS and Mac OS Extended (also called HFS+) and their encrypted and case-sensitive variants are native macOS file formats.

#Format usb for mac with windows drivers

While other Linux systems have drivers with read/write functionality, in macOS write support is disabled. It means Macs can read NTFS drives, but cannot change or delete anything. All we want to know is NTFS compatible with Mac? macOS, by default, has read-only support for NTFS.

#Format usb for mac with windows windows

In just 25 years such name will be ridiculed by rivals.Īnyway, NTFS was the first proper file system developed by Microsoft, it has all features that modern file format should have, and Windows is still using it as a primary format.īut we don’t care about features. The format was released in 1993, so now you know why you should never call anything new. NTFS stands for New Technology File System. Keep reading to learn how to format exFAT on Mac. While we at love myths and tales, but in this case, we think the slowness of exFAT is overblown. The downside of exFAT file format it is slower than other Windows formats according to some widespread rumors. The advantage of exFAT is that it is compatible with Macs. I don’t know how much it is, but I am sure you will never have a file so big. Unlike FAT32, the file size limit in exFAT is 2^64 – 1 bytes or 16 exabytes. Microsoft developed it in 2006 in order to support new 32GB SD cards. Error when copying big files to FAT32 exFATĮxFAT stands for Extended File Allocation Table. For instance, this is the error you will see in Windows when trying to copy a big 8GB file to a disk formatted in FAT32. The largest file it supports is 2^32 – 1 bytes, which is a little less than 4GB. The downside of FAT32 file format is a file size limit. The advantage of FAT32 is that it is compatible with Macs. With files getting larger and larger Microsoft kept extending the number of bytes they supported until they released FAT32.įAT32 is still a DOS file format, but since Microsoft supports anything they built 40 years ago, you still can use it.

The old format was designed in 1978 as an 8-bit file system. It’s the oldest Microsoft file format originally developed for MS-DOS. FAT32įAT stands for File Allocation Table.

Formatįrom the table above, you can see that two formats fully supported by macOS and Windows: FAT32 and exFAT. You just substitute external hard drive with USB flash drive, and the instructions will remain the same.īefore we make any irreversible changes, let me give you a quick overview of file formats supported in both systems. So let me show you how easy it is to format an external hard drive, so it works on both Mac and PC.īy the way, everything written here applies to USB flash drives as well. Probably, your external hard drive works on pc but not Mac. If you are reading this article, I bet you have the same problem. Windows responded cheerfully with a warning sound and displayed its famous “You need to format the disk in drive D: before you can use it.

#Format usb for mac with windows portable

I copied files from Mac to my favorite Samsung T5 portable drive and plugged it into the PC. But yesterday, for some reason I needed to copy some files from Mac to a PC laptop. Typically, I use them for different purposes, so I never need to share data between computers.