Format Thumb Drive For Both Mac And Pc

ISO9660, aka UDF, should work on both PC and Mac. Best Format For External Hard Drive For Mac And PC? The best format when you want to share a hard drive between a Mac and a Windows PC is ExFAT. Both operating systems can read and write to that external hard drive format. You can share and watch the same videos and photos. Listen to the same MP3s. Looking to share an external hard drive between a Mac and PC? The best way to do it is with a drive formatted as FAT32. Though this format has some limitations, it enjoys nearly universal support. But luckily, there are file systems well supported by both Mac and Windows PC, and they are FAT32 (it might be called MS-DOS on Mac) and exFAT. As long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between Mac and Windows. Click the drive name on the left side list in Disk Utility, and then click the “Erase” tab Click the pulldown menu alongside “Format” and select “MS-DOS (FAT)” Optionally, give the drive a name Click the “Erase” button to format the drive for Mac & Windows PC compatibility.

Disk Utility User Guide

In Disk Utility, you can format an external disk that you can use with both a Microsoft Windows-based computer and a Mac. For example, you might want to do this if you use a flash drive to store data files you need to use on your Mac at home and when using a Windows-based computer at school or the public library.

FormatFormat Thumb Drive For Both Mac And Pc

Format Thumb Drive For Both Mac And Pc Games

WARNING: Formatting a disk or volume erases all the files on it. Save any files you need to another volume before formatting.

  1. In the Disk Utility app on your Mac, choose View > Show All Devices.

    If Disk Utility isn’t open, click the Launchpad icon in the Dock, type Disk Utility in the Search field, then click the Disk Utility icon .

  2. In the sidebar, select the disk you want to format to use with Windows computers.

  3. Click the Erase button in the toolbar.

  4. In the Erase dialog, click the Scheme pop-up menu, then choose a partition scheme.

  5. Click the Format pop-up menu, then choose one of the following:

    • MS-DOS (FAT): Choose this format if the size of the disk is 32 GB or less.

    • ExFAT: Choose this format if the size of the disk is over 32 GB.

  6. Enter a name for the volume.

    The maximum length for the volume name is 11 characters.

  7. Click Erase, then click Done.

Using Thumb Drive On Mac

See alsoFile system formats available in Disk Utility on MacPartition schemes available in Disk Utility on MacPartition a physical disk in Disk Utility on Mac