format hard disk to work with mac and windows

Right-click the drive icon in the Finder sidebar (or on the desktop) and select Get Info.

So how do you know if your USB drive is in the correct format? You do not need to do anything special on the 'Disk Utility' - simply insert the USB drive and open Finder. How to format a USB drive as exFAT on Mac Part 2: Format a USB drive as exFAT on Windows.Part 1: Format a USB drive as exFAT on Mac.You can format the drive on your Mac or Windows computer. If you plan on using an external drive with both Macs and PCs, you should format the disk with the exFAT file system instead. By default, Macs use HFS, while PCs use NTFS, which are not compatible with each other. Since the PC and Mac are two different operating systems, they use different file systems. 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.How to Format a USB Drive as exFAT for Mac and Windows Compatibility 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. Select the non-indented entry, you will see Media in the nameĬlick the button labelled Erase in the menu which will bring up this window.Click View in the upper left and select Show All Devices.To open Disk Utility - Open Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility 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. Click here to see other formatting options for your operating system.Looking for a different formatting option? When using between macOS and Windows, drives should always be formatted on macOS because not all Windows allocation unit sizes (cluster sizes) are supported by macOS which will prevent the drive from mounting.ExFAT drives must be safely ejected to prevent corruption because ExFAT is not a journaled file system.

Starting with Big Sur, APFS is now the default for Time Machine.ExFAT is not compatible with Time Machine.It is important to keep the following in mind when formatting to ExFAT: Not seeing your version of macOS? Click here to see other versions of macOS and different formatting options.Not sure which version you are using? Click here to determine your version of macOS.IMPORTANT: This article applies to the following macOS version:

Format hard disk to work with mac and windows