FORMAT EXTERNAL DRIVE FOR MAC HOW TO

There are many file types available when you format a USB drive on Mac, such as exFAT, FAT32, JHFS+, etc. is where you choose which format you want to use when erasing and formatting your pen drive. To format your USB drive on Mac, enter the following command: As for the location, it is usually /dev/, or in this case /dev/disk2. The one that we want to remember is the first identifier, in this case, “disk2” (and not “disk2s2”, which is a partition). That is unless you had previously partitioned it, in which case it might have more than two. You will notice that your pen drive has two identifiers. Now that you know the disc allocated to your USB key, you will need to take note of its identifier and location. Otherwise, look for the particularities of the pen drive you wish to use. It will be easier if you have a single flash drive inserted when wanting to format a USB drive using your Mac. If you see the words “internal,” “synthesized,” or “disk image,” it is not a pen drive. When it says “(external, physical),” it means that it is an external drive such as a pen drive or external hard drive.

You can identify your pen drive by the following: You will find a list of disks in the example above, you can see that my USB key is the external drive located on disk 2. Make sure that you have inserted a USB drive before continuing. The first thing we will want to do is to identify the computer drive linked to your USB key.

FORMAT EXTERNAL DRIVE FOR MAC HOW TO

How to format a USB drive on MacĪccess the Terminal by doing a spotlight search for “Terminal.”

Just as with the Disk Utility method, macOS Mojave offers a simple, efficient formatting procedure through the use of its command line. Its use allows you to execute commands that provide the same result without having to rely on software applications. Even though using the Disk Utility tool to format your USB drive on Mac is a straightforward procedure, sometimes you might want to use the Terminal. This article explains how to format a USB drive on Mac using the command-line.

Format external drive for mac