DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac is a powerful & easy-to-use data erasure software. It will quickly format the USB flash drive on Mac and permanently erase all data on the USB flash drive. Once the USB flash drive is formatted by DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac, all data will be lost forever. You will get a brand new USB flash drive. It offers a tool “Disk Manager”. It can help Mac users securely and quickly format USB flash drive under Mac OS. Very easy to use and 100% safe. The top 5 USB flash drive formatting software for Mac can help us easily and securely format USB flash drive under Mac OS. Just select one of them to format USB flash drive under Mac OS. The exFAT format will not give any limitations on the file size that you are going to store on your flash drive and you can still use it on both Windows and Macs that are running in Mac OS X Snow Leopard or later version. For you to be able to format your flash drive into Fat32, here is what you need to do. To erase and format any drive connected to a Mac computer running OS X Yosemite, use Disk Utility. Simply erasing a USB drive in Disk Utility will automatically format it too. Because there are different types of formats for different purposes, it's good to know the differences before accepting the default settings.
Not every USB drive can be used on Mac out of the box -- you need to format the drive to make sure it's compatible with the MacOS extended file system. And here in this article, we'll offer you a full guide on how to format a USB Drive on Mac. Besides, in case you lose important data due to formatting, we have a professional data recovery tool to help you recover data from a formatted USB drive on Mac.
Bonus: How to Recover Lost Data After Formatting USB Drive
Part 1. What You Should Do First Before Formatting USB Drive on Mac
Make sure that уоu know clearly whаt уоu are doing whеn you begin the whole formatting process, which will еrаѕе your еntirе hаrd drivе.
To avoid formatting the wrong disk, firstly remove the USB drive from Mac, check the title of other storage disks, then insert the USB disk again and note the name of the disk. Next, drag the USB data to a safe location for backup/recovery measures before formatting it. Then you are set to get it done!
Part 2. What Is the Best Format for USB Drive on Mac?
You'll be given several format options when you try to format a USB drive on Mac, including Mac OS X Extended (Journaled), Mac OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled), Mac OS X Extended (Journaled, Encrypted), Mac OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted), 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 (Apple File System)
APFS is a new file system for macOS. It's the most appropriate format for SSD. However, you need the latest macOS to write to this file system. If you're sure that you don't need to use it on a Mac running old version in the future, then you can format your USB drive to APFS.
2Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) & Mac OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
Mac OS X Extended, aka HFS+, is the default file system before APFS for macOS 10.12 and earlier. It doesn't put a limit on the size of files you can save on the drive, which is the greatest advantage. Windows-running computers can read the files formatted to Mac OS X Extended but can't write to them. And this file system is necessary if you plan on using the drive for Time Machine backups.
The biggest difference between Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) and Mac OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) is the latter one is case-sensitive to folder names. For example, 'file' is different from 'File'. Therefore, if you do not have special needs, just ignore this option.
3Mac OS X Extended (Journaled, Encrypted) & Mac OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted)
These two are basically the same with the previous two but with encryption, which means you have to provide the password whenever you connect the drive to your Mac.
4MS-DOS (FAT)
This is Disk Utility's name for FAT32 file system. As the most widely compatible file system, it suits both Windows operating system and macOS. Therefore one can easily transfer data between PC and Mac using a USB drive formatted this way. However, a USB drive formatted to FAT32 doesn't support long file names and an individual file cannot be larger than 4GB.
5ExFAT
ExFAT is the improved version of the older FAT32, which offers larger storage space and supports files larger than 4GB. Of course it also supports transferring files between PC and Mac as a cross-platform file system.
To arrive at a conclusion, if you need to transfer smaller files between operating systems, choose MS-DOS (FAT) or FAT32. And with no doubt, ExFAT will be the best format for USB drive on Mac for larger files.
Part 3. How to Format USB to FAT32/ExFAT on Mac
As earlier stated, you need to first back up your USB drive before formatting it as the formatting operation will wipe all the data. Now, you can follow the steps highlighted below to get the USB successfully formatted.
Method 1: Format a USB Drive on Mac OS with Disk Utility
Reformat Usb Drive Mac
Step 1: Insert the USB waiting to be formatted to a Mac computer.
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 use the drive with new file system to store data again.
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 the formatting.
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.
Bonus: How to Recover Lost Data After Formatting USB Drive
Formatting a USB drive is never an easy task and problems tend to arise from time to time, among which data loss is perhaps the most common one. Users format a USB drive by mistake or directly format it without doing any backup job and both mistakes will cause data loss disaster. This issue will worry us even more when there are important files we cannot offord to lose. If this is the case, you'll need a professional data recovery software to help you get back lost files, and AnyRecover is what you need exactly. With this software, anyone can recover all kinds of data from formatted USB drive on Mac with only 3 simple steps.
As a comprehensive Mac data recovery solution, it handles all data loss scenarios, including formatting USB drive, hard drive failure, and Mac crash.
All-round and deep scan ensures high recovery rate, and sophisticated algorithms contribute to quick scanning speed.
Supports data recovery on all types of USB drives in various file formats like NTFS, HFS+, FAT32, and ExFAT.
Brings back the lost photos, videos, documents, compressed files, etc. - numerous kinds of data from formatted USB drive easily.
Provides preview before recovery and enables selective recovery.
NoteAnyRecover offers free trial for every user, with which one can scan, preview and recover 3 files for free. Just download and have a try! The more time for hesitation, the less possibility for your lost data to get back!
Follow the simple steps below to recover data after formatting USB drive on mac:
Step 1: Make sure you have connected your USB drive to your Mac successfully. Download, install and launch AnyRecover. Then select the formatted USB drive you are trying to recover data from as the location to find data. Press the 'Start' button to initiate 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, all the files will be listed in their respective file formats and folders. Freely preview and choose what to recover by clicking on 'Recover' button.
Format Thumb Drive Bootable
Final Words
Formatting is a complicated process indeed but by clearing your mind and then follow the steps as listed out in the article, you can successfully format a USB drive on Mac without much difficulty or errors. Loss of data may come as a nightmare but AnyRecover is powerful enough to help you out. In fact, not just after you format a USB drive, it can work wonders whenever you lose data. Try it and you won't be disappointed.
by Shirly Chen, updated on 2019-07-08 to Mac Data Wipe
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.
Format Thumb Drive Mac Fat32
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.
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