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Format USB Drive for Both Mac and PC: What You Need to Know



Although the current trends favor using the cloud and decentralized applications for storage and file transfer, the USB drive still plays a relevant role in business applications. A USB drive requires no internet connection, can transfer files to and from a local device quickly, can be physically disconnected and secured away and are physical objects that can carry your branding and company identity.




How To Format Usb Drive For Both Mac And Pc




If you're interested in formatting USB drives for business use, it is crucial to understand that the process depends on whether your company primarily uses Windows PCs, Macs or a mix of both. Here are the step-by-step procedures for all three use cases.


Brand-new USB drives, from single thumbsticks to USB wristbands sold wholesale, cannot be immediately used and recognized by a computer because they have not yet been formatted to use a file system that the computer can recognize. Depending on the OS your business computers use the most, you have three formatting options: NTFS, APFS or exFAT.


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Windows 10 and macOS use two different file systems by default. A file system determines how an operating system writes data to a hard disk or a USB drive. Windows 10 uses a file system called NTFS, and macOS currently uses APFS by default.


In Disk Utility, you can format an external disk that you can use with both a Microsoft Windows-based computer and a Mac. For example, you might want to do this if you use a flash drive to store data files you need to use on your Mac at home and when using a Windows-based computer at school or the public library.


Of course, you can format the drive for both Windows and Mac. In Windows, the best format tool I recommend is EaseUS Partition Master, and in Mac, Disk Utility is a better choice to format the drive to exFAT format for both Mac and Windows.


Are you looking for what format works on both Mac and PC? If you have two different computer systems and want to copy and transfer files between them, finding a compatible file system format is necessary. Most USB formats are NTFS by default, while the common format for Mac is generally APFS. Next, let's explore what formats are compatible with Mac and PC.


Although there are many file systems, not each supports Mac and PC. To format without errors, we need to choose the correct format. There are three types of formats that can be used on Mac. But they have some differences, let's take a look.


The best file formats supported on Mac and Windows are exFAT and FAT32. If you want the drive to be compatible with Mac and PC, you will need to format the drive for both systems. And exFAT32 has a limit on file size, while exFAT supports maximum partitions and can also store files larger than 4GB.


By the above part, do you know what format works on both Mac and PC? Yes, the formats supported by both Mac and PC are FAT32 and exFAT. Then do you know how to format the drive to a common file system for both Mac and PC? I will provide two ways next.


There are several ways to format to exFAT format on Windows. One of the easiest is to take advantage of a reliable three-way tool: EaseUS Partition Master Free. This all-in-one free partition manager can easily support any format to exFAT. It is ideal for novice users. You can format drives that work on Mac and PC in just a few easy steps.


  • Right-click the external drive or USB you intend to format and choose "Format".

  • Set the Partition label, File system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3/EXT4/exFAT), and Cluster size, then click "OK".

  • Click "Yes" to continue.

  • Click the "Execute 1 Task(s)" button and click "Apply" to format the hard drive partition.



Besides formatting drives easily, EaseUS Partition Master also can convert NTFS to FAT32 for Mac and PC or convert MBR to GPT. It can also adjust disk space or check disk. It is one of the best free disk managers. If you want to use other tools to format to exFAT on Windows, you can also choose Disk Management or File Explorer. And you can click the links below to see the exact steps.


In Mac, two ways to format drives can be used for both Mac and PC. I will introduce a simple method. Disk Utility is a tool for Mac that can change the file system or format internal and external drives. The steps are as follows.


With this guide, do you know what format works on Mac and PC? Both FAT32 and exFAT are good choices. FAT32 is outstanding in compatibility, but it is limited to 4GB of files. While exFAT supports partitions larger than 2TB and 4GB files. Moreover, formatting compatible drives for Mac and PC is not a difficult task. You can do it with EaseUS Partition Master on PC or use Disk Utility to format on Mac.


Yes, exFAT is compatible with both Mac and Windows computers. You can set this file system format to an external hard drive so as to use it for data transferring between Mac and Windows without any read or write issues.


Every operating system works based on the files and folders, given that Windows and Mac have been the widely used operating systems, understanding how to work with the file systems on both devices. Unfortunately, Windows and Mac systems work with different file systems, which should make it difficult to format a flash or USB drive and then use it interchangeably between the Mac and Windows devices.


Before we can move ahead in finding how to format a USB drive for PC and Mac, we need to find which file systems work on the two major operating systems. Having obtained complete information on which file formats work on the individual operating systems, we can easily find the file system that can be compatible with both platforms.


From the table above, it can very well be found that FAT and exFAT are the two best file systems that provide you access to complete compatibility with both Mac and Windows. You can read and understand a few differences and comparisons between FAT32 and exFAT in the following content.


If you are checking out the options for how to format a USB drive for PC or Mac, Windows does provide you access to several options. You can either go with the built-in option or opt for a third-party tool as per your preferences.


EaseUS Partition Master is one of the unique and great options that can be used for getting access to a great degree of compatibility with how to format USB drive for PC and Mac. It supports for a wide range of file systems that you can work with it.


The EaseUS Windows 10 disk management software does provide you both free and professional functionality. It offers you a complete partition management tool without any sort of data loss. The partition management tool can be your best bet, irrespective of whether you are a beginner or an expert.


FAT32 is one of the oldest file systems used on a Windows system. The file system was introduced during Windows 95 and replaced the older FAT16 system used in MS-DOS and Windows 3 systems. FAT32 has ideally become the de facto standard for most computer systems. Most of the flash drives available today come with the FAT32 file system and thus offer a high degree of compatibility across Mac and Windows rather effectively.


When using a FAT32 file system, the prime issue is that it is limited to 4GB in size. The files system cannot work with any higher file size than that. That should ideally make it a good choice for flash drives and USB drives, but never on an internal drive.


The exFAT or Extended FAT file systems was introduced in 2006 with Windows XP and were planned as a great means of overcoming the limitations on the FAT32 system. The file system is optimized for flash drives and works great for both internal and flash drives. The key differences between ExFAT and FAT32 can be summarised as follows.


Well, formatting a USB drive so that it is compatible with both Mac and Windows can be quite simple if you are aware of which file systems to choose from. While there are several methods available for formatting a USB drive for PC and Mac, using a third-party utility - EaseUS Partition Master can prove to be one of the excellent options.


Thumb drives, by default, often ship with a Windows file system incompatible to Macs. When these incompatibly formatted thumb drives are connected to a Mac, macOS displays a warning, as shown in Figure A.


When you click Erase, macOS will initialize the thumb drive using the file format you specified. Once the process completes, macOS will display an operation successful message, as shown in Figure C.


The process proves a little different if the thumb drive was previously configured for a Mac. Should that be the case, and should you now wish to convert the file system to FAT to also permit using the device with a Windows PC, open the macOS Disk Utility by opening Finder, selecting Applications and double-clicking the Utilities folder and then the Disk Utility entry.


When the thumb drive is subsequently connected to a Windows system, you can use the device to store, back up and transfer files just as when connected to a Mac. As you can see in Figure E, the device appears within Windows as a FAT32-configured USB drive. 2ff7e9595c


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