It’s exactly the same procedure if you need to reformat a flash drive on a Mac. So, if you’ve bought a USB drive that’s formatted as Fat32, or any other format other than Mac OS Extended (also known as HFS+) or APFS, here’s how to format a USB drive on Mac. Drives formatted as Fat32 can be read from and written to by macOS, but it’s not optimal and you’re more likely to run into problems than if you use macOS’ native format. That’s because most of the computers in the world run Windows, and Windows uses a different file system, usually one known as Fat32. However, unless it’s been designed for use with a Mac, it won’t be formatted using macOS’ preferred file system (either Mac OS Extended or APFS, depending on which version of macOS you’re running). Nowadays, when you buy a USB drive, you can use it right out of the box with your Mac. Test it out in a free version and head over to the tips below.įeatures described in this article refer to the MacPaw site version of CleanMyMac X. This is our app that cleans old caches, system junk, and large hidden files. If you want to erase all unwanted files from your macOS, download CleanMyMac X.
