How to format usb on Mac for Windows? There are many reasons to format USB memory stick on Windows computer. For example, if you have a USB with corrupted or corrupted files on it, you need to erase the data and start over. Also if you have moved all your data from one USB to another USB, then format the old one to prevent others accessing your private information. Let's see how to format USB with and without using any software for Mac.
Ever had any trouble transferring files using a thumb drive? If you usually transfer files between Mac devices only, then you were probably ok. But things are different when we are talking about copying files from or into a windows device.
The disk formats or file systems supported by Windows and Mac are different. You will often be scratching your head when you find your usb stick not working that was working just fine before. Don’t worry; you are not alone.
In this article, you will learn to format your usb drive to make it work on both Mac and Windows. But, before we get started, you will need some knowledge of different disk formats.
An usb drive required to work on a Mac supports the following disk formats:
The APFS and Mac os Extended file systems are exclusive to Mac only. Therefore, any usb drive formatted with these will not be readable by a Windows device.
Windows can read and write in the following file systems:
All three of these file systems were developed by Microsoft. FAT32 and exFAT formatted usb drives will work on almost any platform. But some platforms, including Mac, do not support NTFS volumes. NTFS is mainly used by Windows machines. You can read NTFS formatted usb drives on a Mac, but you can’t write in them.
If you want a usb drive that would work on both Mac and Windows, then the FAT32 and exFAT would be the best choice. However, FAT32 has more limitations compared to exFAT. FAT32 cannot store any particular file that is larger than 4GB. Moreover, a FAT32 partition can’t be more than 8TB.
If a FAT32 file system meets your file sharing demands, then you can go for it. Otherwise, you have to use the exFAT file system. It doesn’t have any limitations like the FAT32, and it will support both Mac and Windows.
So, we will show you how to format your pen drive in exFAT so that it works in both operating systems.