After downloading the installer, connect the USB flash drive or other volume you're using for the bootable installer. Make sure that it has at least 12GB of available storage and is formatted as Mac OS Extended. Open Terminal, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder. Type or paste one of the following commands in Terminal. If a Mac is having some issues a bootable USB of the OS can serve as an emergency disk. It is better than OS X Recovery as you don’t have to download the ~5GB installer data, first, to reinstall the OS or installer disk for Macs that does not support OS X Recovery.
Nowadays, when you buy a USB drive, you can use it right out of the box with your Mac. 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). That’s because most of the computers in the world run Windows, and Windows uses a different file system, usually one known as Fat32. 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. 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. It’s exactly the same procedure if you need to reformat a flash drive on a Mac. How to format a USB drive on a Mac 1.
Plug the drive into a USB socket (if you have a recent MacBook or MacBook Pro that only has USB-C connectors, you’ll need a USB-C to USB-A adaptor). Open a new Finder window and click on the drive. Make sure it has no files on it that you need. The process of reformatting it will wipe all the data from it. Once you’ve copied any files you need from the USB drive to your Mac, go to ApplicationsUtilities and double-click on Disk Utility. Click on the USB drive in the sidebar and then choose Erase from the toolbar at the top of the window. In the window that drops down type a name for the formatted drive in the box next to Name.
Choose a format from the dropdown menu. If you have previously stored sensitive data on the drive, click the Security tab. Choose a security level using the slider. The further to the right you move the slider, the more ‘passes’ the erase tool will make and the more securely files will be deleted. However, it also increases the time it takes to format the drive quite considerably. Click Ok then click Erase. Tip: You don’t need to erase a whole drive to delete files securely.
If you have confidential files or sensitive data you need to remove from your Mac completely, you should use File Shredder. It’s specifically designed to securely delete sensitive data and will render it unrecoverable. You can download CleanMyMac X for free. Which format to choose? If your Mac is running macOS High Sierra or later, you have two options for file formats: APFS and Mac OS Extended.
Which should you choose? The key point is that disks formatted as APFS won’t be recognized by Macs running versions of macOS older than High Sierra. So if you think you might need to plug the USB drive into a Mac running an older version of macOS, format it as Mac OS Extended. APFS is optimized for SSD (solid state drive) such as flash drives, so if you reformat a flash drive on a Mac, you should definitely choose APFS (unless you plan to use it with a pre-High Sierra Mac, of course).
Even on hard drives, however, APFS is faster and more reliable than Mac OS Extended. Finally, if you plan to use the USB drive as a destination for Time Machine backups, choose Mac OS Extended. Time Machine can’t currently back up to an APFS disk and if you select one for use with Time Machine, it will offer to reformat it as Mac OS Extended. You can, however, backup an APFS formatted disk to a Mac OS Extended Time Machine drive.
How to format a USB drive to FAT32 on a Mac The main reason for formatting a USB drive as Fat32 on a Mac is that you want to be able to use the drive on a Windows PC, as well as a Mac — perhaps to transfer files between the two machines. You may also be preparing the drive for use as, say, a storage device for a media player or to record TV programmes on a TV with a USB port.
The fact that Fat32 can be read from and written to on both Mac and Windows makes it very versatile. However, there is a significant limitation — individual files have a maximum size of 4GB. So, if you’re using the USB drive to store large video files, you may run into trouble. There is a solution, however, exFAT. Unlike FAT32, exFAT doesn’t have a maximum file limit.
Better still, it can be read from and written to on any Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard or later and on Windows. To format a USB drive in FAT32 or exFAT: 1. Plug the USB drive into your Mac. Go to ApplicationsUtilities and launch Disk Utility. Click on the USB drive in the sidebar in Disk Utility.
Click Erase in the Disk Utility toolbar. Type in a name for the formatted disk. Click on the Format menu and choose either MS-DOS (FAT32) or ExFAT. Your USB drive will now be erased and re-formatted as either FAT32 or ExFAT, depending on the format you chose in step 6. How to manage your drives easily If you look for a quick and easy way to manage your drives, try using. With its help, you can drag-and-drop files directly to any drive, clean hidden junk from external drives, and check disk stats. It works for all drives, including USB drives, SSD, SD cards, external hard drives.
All the drives will be at hand in the menu bar, so you can get to see types of drives you have and manage them easily. CleanMyDrive is absolutely free to use, so download it on the Mac App Store and enjoy!
It’s very easy to format a USB drive on a Mac using Disk Utility. There are a couple of things you should keep in mind, however. The first is that when you format and disk, you will erase all the data currently on it. So if you need that data, make sure you copy it onto another disk before you start.
Secondly, there are several formats to choose from, each with advantages and disadvantage. Use the guide above to help you decide which is right for you.
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Why a flash drive? A bootable external or internal hard drive works well for desktop Macs but presents a cumbersome problem for notebook Macs. A flash drive is a simple, inexpensive, and portable emergency boot device that can handle OS X or the macOS.
Heck, it can even have both operating systems installed, letting you use the emergency USB flash drive to boot any of the Mac's you may have. Even if you don’t use a notebook, you may want to have a bootable USB flash drive on hand. What You Will Need.
Insert the USB flash drive into your Mac’s USB port. Launch Disk Utility, located at /Applications/Utilities/. In the list of drives attached to your Mac, select the USB flash drive device. In our case, it’s called 14.9 GB SanDisk Cruzer Media. (Like lumber, hard drives and flash drives are actually slightly smaller than their specs would have you believe.). Click the Partition tab.
Select 1 Partition from the Volume Scheme drop-down menu. Enter a descriptive name for your flash drive; we chose Boot Tools. Select Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) from the Format drop-down menu. Click the Options button. Select GUID Partition Table from the list of available partition schemes.
Click the Apply button. A sheet will drop down, warning you that you are about to erase all data from the disk.
Click Partition. Disk Utility will format and partition your flash drive. Quit Disk Utility. Before you begin the installation, a few notes about the process. As we mentioned earlier, USB flash drives are much slower at writing data.
Since the installation process is all about writing data to the USB flash drive, it’s going to take quite some time. When we performed the installation, it took about two hours. So be patient, and don’t worry about how slow some of the processes seem; this is normal. You can expect to see plenty of beach balls and slow responses as you work your way through the installation process.