RELATED: How to Copy Files to a USB Flash Drive on Windows 10 How to Format a USB Drive as exFAT on Macįirst, find a free USB slot on your Mac and plug in the USB drive that you’d like to set up as a Windows and Mac disk. You can copy data to the drive as you normally would, and the drive will also be readable and writable on a Mac. The next time that you open File Explorer, you’ll see the formatted USB drive in your “Devices and Drives” list. When you see a “Format Complete” window, click “OK.” Windows will format the drive with the exFAT file system. Make sure that the USB drive is either blank or that you already have a backup first. If you’re ready, click “OK.” Warning: You’re about to lose all of the data on the drive. Next, you’ll see a warning that reminds you that you’re about to lose all of the data on the disk that you’re going to format.
In the “Format” window that appears, click the drop-down box labeled “File System” and select “exFAT.” Then, type in a name for the drive in the “Volume Label” box (if you’d like) and click “Start.” Warning: Make sure that you pick the right drive, or you could end up accidentally erasing important data. If Windows recognizes the drive, open File Explorer and navigate to “This PC.” In your “Devices and Drives” list, right-click the USB drive that you want to use as a universal drive and select “Format” from the list. Warning: The contents of the drive will be erased when you click “Format Disk.” Make sure that you’ve backed up your important files first. If Windows says that it doesn’t recognize the drive (and you’ve already backed up any data on it), click “Format Disk,” and then skip the next step. RELATED: What's the Best Way to Back Up My Computer? How to Format a USB Drive as exFAT on Windowsįirst, plug the USB drive that you’d like to format as a universal Mac/Windows drive into your Windows machine.
If the USB drive is formatted as a Windows drive, it’s probably best to back it up with a Windows Machine. If the USB drive is formatted with the Mac file system, you’ll need to use a Mac to transfer the data off of the drive. Formatting a drive always erases all of the data on the drive. If the USB drive that you want to use as a universal transfer drive contains any data that you want to keep, you’ll need to back up that data onto another disk or a cloud backup service first. RELATED: Why Does Windows Want to Format My Mac Drives? Before You Get Started: Back Up the USB Drive First This disk preparation setup process is called “ formatting.” Open A Finder Window And Browse To the Files To Move. Double Click On Your External Hard Disk Icon. Connect Up Your External Hard Drive To Your Mac's USB. How To Move All Files From Mac To External Hard Drive. Below, we’ll show you how to set up a USB drive as exFAT for both Windows and Mac. Move Your Cursor To The Finder Window On Your External Hard Drive. That file system is called exFAT, and it’s designed for flash media cross-platform compatibility. If you’re frequently using both Macs and PCs with the same drive, the ideal solution is to configure a USB drive with a file system that both operating systems can read. And likewise, if you format a USB drive as NTFS on Windows, Macs can read it but not write to it (although there are some ways around it). They cost more than the physical Hard Drive and offers less storage, but comes with the convenience to access those files over the network.So here’s the problem: If you format a USB drive as APFS on a Mac, Windows 10 won’t read it without third-party tools (and will actually ask to format it). However, if plugging in a hard drive is too much work for you, consider getting a Wi-Fi drive like this one from ScanDisk.
TRANSFER FILES MAC TO PC USB ANDROID
And if you want something more compact and much faster, SSDs will do the job pretty well but they do come at a price compared to hard disks.Īnother great thing about them is that you can also use these devices to not only share files between two Macs but even Windows and Android device (using an OTG cable or adapter). Pen Drives are good for a quick transfer of small files, HDDs are great for sharing very large files (upto 4TB) and also backing up your computer. On the receiving Mac, accept the file transfer. Wait for the other Mac to appear, then drag and drop the file(s) to the Mac to transfer files to. Just connect the device to the sender’s Mac, copy the files to it and then connect it to the receiver’s Mac and then copy from the device to the computer. 3 Easy Ways to Share Files Between Macs Hit Command+Shift+R to open AirDrop. Physical storage devices such as pen drives, external hard disks (HDDs), Solid State Drives (SSDs) have risen in popularity over the last few years owing to the ease of file sharing they offer.