
What Is The Best Format For An External Drive On Mac?.External Hard Drive Formatting Problems On Mac.Which Format Is Best For External Drives With M1 & M2 Macs?.How To Backup & Restore A Mac With Time Machine.You may also want to reformat an external hard drive to that you can install Windows on it and run Windows from an external drive on your Mac. However, if the drive is formatted in NTFS format, it will only work with Windows and you will need to reformat the external drive to work with your Mac.Īlternatively, you might just want to wipe an external hard drive to recover storage space, use it for Time Machine backups, delete the contents of it or sell it. If the drive is formatted in exFAT format then it will work with both macOS and Windows. Many external hard drives however are formatted for use with Windows PCs out of the box. Some external hard drives like the WD My Passport For Mac are formatted for macOS and work out of the box. If you’ve just bought an external drive and are having a hard time getting your Mac to recognize it, it may be because it needs reformatting. WARNING:Formatting the drive will erase all data on the drive, so you should copy any data you want off the drive prior to formatting.If you’ve bought an external hard drive but it’s not working with your Mac or you want to delete everything off an external drive, here we show you how to format an external hard drive on a Mac. Set Format to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Check step 2 to confirm Disk Utility is Showing All Devices. NOTE: If you don’t see Scheme, then make sure that all devices are showing and the non-indented entry is selected.



Note: If you would prefer a video tutorial of these steps instead, please click the thumbnail below. IMPORTANT: Reformatting the drive will erase all data on the drive, so you should copy any data you want off the drive prior to formatting. If you need to go between macOS and Windows then format your drive ExFAT on macOS

Starting with Big Sur, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is no longer the default when using Time Machine.It is important to keep the following in mind when formatting Mac OS Extended (Journaled): Not sure what version you are using? Click here to determine your version of macOS IMPORTANT: This article applies to the following macOS versions:
