Many individuals utilize external USB drives and storage devices, be they hard drives or flash drives, for transferring large files and as backups, such as for Time Machine. Often when you purchase a new hard drive or USB drive, even for Mac use, it is pre-formatted in a Windows-compatible format like exFAT or FAT32 instead of the Mac file system HFS . However, this isn't an issue since you can easily convert the USB drive to be fully compatible with Mac systems.

The method to erase and format a USB drive remains consistent whether the device is a USB hard drive, USB flash drive, SSD, key, thumbdrive, etc., and is unaffected by whether the drive uses USB-C or USB-A.

It's crucial to remember that formatting a drive will delete all data on it, so avoid doing this if there’s information on the drive you wish to keep.

How to Format an External USB Drive on Mac

Formatting will wipe the drive clean to make it natively compatible with MacOS.

1. Attach the USB drive to your Mac

2. Launch Disk Utility on your Mac from /Applications/Utilities/ or through Spotlight

3. Choose the USB drive you want to format from the left sidebar

4. Click the “Erase” button in the toolbar

5. Assign a name to the drive if desired, such as 'backup' or any preferred label. For native Mac compatibility, select “MacOS Extended (Journaled)” as the file system type, then click on “Erase” *

6. Allow Disk Utility to erase the drive; depending on the disk type, this might be very fast or take some time, so remain patient until completion

7. Upon completion, click “Done” and proceed to use the drive as needed

Now you're set to utilize the formatted USB drive on your Mac for various purposes, including using it as a Time Machine backup drive, a destination for manual file backup, additional storage space, running an operating system directly from it, or other needs.

* You might have noticed other file system options available when formatting a USB drive on the Mac, but most Mac users should stick with Mac OS Extended. Alternatively, you can choose FAT and exFAT formats if cross-compatibility with Windows and MacOS is desired.

Formatting any USB drive for the Mac remains the same regardless of its type—be it a USB flash drive, USB external SSD drive, USB key, a traditional spinning USB HDD drive, or any other external drive or disk you may possess. This process essentially stays consistent across all versions of MacOS, meaning these instructions are applicable no matter what system software your Mac is running.

Have you successfully formatted a USB drive to work with a Mac? Did you encounter any issues? Share your experiences, thoughts, or questions in the comments below.

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