by Shirly Chen, updated on 2019-07-08 to Mac Data Wipe
- Completely Reformat Usb Drive
- How To Reformat Usb Flash Drive On Mac Video
- How To Reformat Usb Flash Drive On Mac Computer
Oct 15, 2019 Type a name for the USB drive in the 'Name' field. Click on the 'Erase' button located at the bottom right corner of Disk Utility. Click on 'Erase' again when the confirmation dialog box displays on-screen. Your USB drive will now be formatted and ready for use on your Mac computer. Part 1: How To Format Flash Drive On Mac. Here are the steps that you need to follow. Do these steps and you will then be able to format your flash drive on your Mac. Step 1: Go ahead and plug in your flash drive in the USB port on your Mac. Step 2: After that, go ahead and launch the Finder and click on your flash drive detected by your Mac. Step 2: Click the icon for unreadable USB flash drive in the sidebar on the left. Step 3: Click the Erase tab along the top of the window and enter the related information. Step 4: Click the Erase button. Step 5: Click the Erase button to reformat unreadable USB flash drive, the unreadable USB flash drive will be working again after format.
USB drives and external hard drives on macOS Catalina are used for storing and backing up important data such as photos, videos, audios, images, notes, messages, music files, PDF files, Word documents, among other files. Sometimes, we delete some of these files because we do not need them, but they remain somewhere and can be retrieved from the same device or using a data recovery software. In some cases, we want to carry out this task in a permanent way, but we do not have any idea about how to do it. Here, we will show you how to permanently format and delete your files and so prevent a possible data recovery.
Three ways to format USB flash drive, external hard drive on macOS Catalina
There are many tools can help you format USB flash drive, portable hard drive, memory card or other storage device on macOS Catalina. Here, we will show you three ways to format USB flash drive, external hard drive, etc on macOS Catalina.
1. Format USB flash drive/external hard drive with Disk Utility on macOS Catalina
Disk Utility is a built-in disk management application on macOS Catalina. You can run it to format the USB flash drive, external hard drive on macOS Catalina. But, the formatted data can be recovered by Mac data recovery software.
2. Format USB flash drive/external hard drive with MacClean360 on macOS Catalina
MacClean360 also offers disk management tool, disk manager. This tool can help you securely and quickly format USB flash drive, external hard drive under macOS Catalina. The formatted data also can be recovered by Mac data recovery software.
3. Format USB flash drive/external hard drive and permanently wipe data on macOS Catalina
If we are planning to sell, donate or dispose our USB flash drive or external hard drive to another person, we should format them to clean up all data, even this is also an option if we want to recover their complete storage. Maybe, we do not know how to format our device properly and permanently to avoid retrieving our private files. here, we will help you choose the best way to format/wipe your device on macOS Catalina; you can use DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac, which is highly recommended by users.
DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac can help you format USB flash drive, External hard drive or other device on macOS Catalina. And it will permanently wipe all data from the USB flash drive or device. Once the USB flash drive/external hard drive is formatted by this software, all data on the USB flash drive/external hard drive will be gone forever, can't be recovered by any data recovery method. So, before you format your USB flash drive or external hard drive with DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac, you'd better back up your data to a safe location.
The steps to format USB flash drive/external hard drive on macOS Catalina are pretty simple.
Step 1: Download DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac.
Download and install this disk formatting tool for macOS Catalina. Then run it from Launchpad. And connect the USB flash drive or external hard drive with your Mac.
Step 2: Format and wipe the USB flash drive/external hard drive on macOS Catalina.
Choose mode 'Wipe Hard Drive', then choose the targeted device and click on 'Wipe Now' button. Then the selected USB flash drive or external hard drive will be formatted and all data on the selected device will be permanently erased.
The three ways above can help you securely and easily format USB flash drive, external hard drive on macOS Catalina. We strongly recommend DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac. It will help you format and wipe data before you sell, donate, or give away your hard drive, USB flash drive, memory card, digital camera, portable hard drive, etc. Iphone unlocker pro free download for mac.
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Not every USB drive can be used with a Mac out of the box, you'll need to format the drive to compatible with the MacOS extended file system. If you want to ensure full Mac compatibility on your USB drive or flash disk, just read this article. And you will find two ways which will teach you how to format a USB drive on Mac, including Disk Utility and Terminal command. And if you lost your important data because of formatting, you can use a data recovery tool to recover data from a formatted USB drive on Mac.
1 What You Should Do First Before Formatting USB Drive on Mac
Yоu hаvе tо be sure that уоu know whаt уоu are doing whеn you execute thе соmmаndѕ, because you саn еrаѕе your еntirе hаrd drivе if уоu do this wrоng.
The only way to be sure of the content you are formatting is to first remove the USB drive from Mac, know the title of other storage disks, insert the USB disk again and note the name of the disk. Now you are sure not to be formatting a wrong disk this way. Next, drag the USB data to a safe location for backup/recovery measures before formatting it. Then you are set to get it done!
2 What is the Best Format to Choose When Formatting USB Drive on Mac
You'll be given several format options when you try to format a USB drive on Mac, including OS X Extended (Journaled), OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled), MS-DOS (FAT) and ExFAT. If you are using macOS 10.13 or later, you'll also see an option named APFS, which is the default file system of macOS 10.13 and later.
1APFS
APFS is a new file system for macOS. It's the most appropriate format for flash drives and SSDs. However, in order to write to this file system, you need to have the latest macOS. If you're sure that you won't connect the USB drive to a Mac computer running old version, then you can format your USB drive with APFS.
2OS X Extended (Journaled) & OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
This is the default file system for macOS 10.12 and earlier. It doesn't put a limit on the size of files you can save on the drive, and that's the greatest advantage. Windows-running computers can read the files formatted to OS X Extended (Journaled), but can't write to them. In other words, you can transfer files from Macs to PCs without any problem, but you won't be able to transfer files from PCs to Macs. If you need to transfer data between PCs and Macs, you should consider other options.
The biggest difference between OS X Extended (Journaled) and OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) is the latter is case-sensitive to folder names. Therefore, if you do not have special needs, you can ignore this option.
3MS-DOS (FAT)
This is Disk Utility's name for FAT32 file system. It's compatible with Windows operating systems and macOS. A USB drive formatted this way can easily transfer data between PCs and Macs. However, a USB drive formatted to FAT32 doesn't support an individual file larger than 4GB.
4ExFAT
ExFAT, the successor of FAT32, offers larger storage space and supports files larger than 4GB. So, if you need to transfer large files between PCs and Macs, ExFAT will be the best format for your USB drive.
3 How to Format a USB Drive on Mac
Completely Reformat Usb Drive
As earlier stated, you need to first back up your USB drive before formatting the drive as you may not be able to recover the contents again. Now, you can follow the steps highlighted below to get it successfully formatted.
Method 1: Format a USB Drive in Mac OS with Disk Utility
Step 1: Insert the USB to be formatted to a Mac computer.
How To Reformat Usb Flash Drive On Mac Video
Step 2: Navigate to Applications > Utilities, and click it twice to open it.
Step 3: Select the drive you want to format and click on Erase.
Step 4: Rename the USB drive (optional), and choose one file system from the options.
Step 5: Then select Master Boot Record for scheme, hit Erase.
Step 6: Once the process is done, you are ready to reuse the drive with new file system to save data again.
How To Reformat Usb Flash Drive On Mac Computer
Method 2: Convert/Format USB Drive to FAT32/ExFAT
Step 1: Connect the USB drive to your Mac computer.
Step 2: Click on cmd + space to run spotlight, input terminal then tap Enter key.
Step 3: Type diskutil list to find the location of your USB drive (eg: dev/disk2 is the USB drive in the below picture).
Step 4: Type sudo diskutil eraseDisk FAT32 MBRFormat /dev/disk2.
sudo gives you user right.
Diskutil calls disk utility program.
eraseDisk commands to format.
FAT32 sets the file system.
MBRFormat tells disk utility to format with a Master Boot Record.
/dev/disk2 is the location of the USB drive.
Note: You can replace FAT32 with ExFAT in the command, and your USB drive will be formatted in that way.
After the process completes, type diskutil list in command once more to check if the USB drive has been formatted successfully.
4Bonus: How to Recover Lost Data after Formatting a USB Drive
Users perhaps format a USB drive by mistake. Only after formatting it, they would realize that they had lost important data. If you don' t have a backup for data, then you can recover lost data from formatted USB drive on Mac with this trusted data recovery software - iMyFone AnyRecover. You can now recover all kinds of data from formatted USB drive on Mac with only 3 simple steps.
Features of iMyFone AnyRecover:
- Your Comprehensive Mac Data Recovery Solution
You can get back your lost photos, videos, documents, compressed files, and numerous kinds of data from formatted USB drive easily.
It adopts all-round scan and deep scan simultaneously, which can greatly shorten the scanning time and recover more data.
It supports data recovery on all types of USB drives. It also supports file formats like NTFS, HFS+, FAT32, exFAT, etc.
It allows you to preview scanned files before recovery. And you can recover any 3 files for free.
Follow the simple steps below to recover data after formatting USB flash drive on mac:
Step 1: Make sure you have connected your USB drive to your Mac successfully. Launch AnyRecover software on your system and select the formatted USB drive you are trying to recover from. And press the 'Start' button to start the scanning.
Step 2: The software will immediately begin the scanning process. You can pause the process at any time and resume from that point later.
Step 3: Immediately after the scanning process is complete, the software will list all the files in their respective file formats and folders. Tick on and confirm what you are going to recover, then click on 'Recover' button.
