Right-click on the icon for your external drive on Mac desktop, then select “Get Info”. You can also check to see if the format was successful. Step 4: Wait until the erasing process is complete.įor me, it took less than a minute to format my 2TB Seagate Expansion. You may also want to rename your external drive here. Pro tip: If you want to use the external drive for both Mac and PC, you can also select “ExFAT”. By default, it’s the Windows NT File System (NTFS). Step 3: Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” in Format.Ī new window will pop up asking which file system you’d like to format the external drive to. Click on this icon on the top left corner and select “Show All Devices”. Note: if your hard drive is not showing on the left panel, it must have been hidden. Select that disk and click the “Erase” button, the one highlighted in red in the screenshot below. It should show up on the left panel under “External”. Step 2: Highlight your external drive and click “Erase”. The quickest way to do this is a simple Spotlight search (click the search icon on the upper right corner), or go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. They might be different if your Mac is on a relatively new macOS version. Note: The tutorial and screenshots below are based on an older version of macOS. How to Format an External Drive for MacĪs explained above, you need to format your drive from NTFS to Mac OS Extended. The problem is that on macOS, you can’t work with files saved on an NTFS drive unless you use a third-party app which usually costs money. What is NTFS? I’m not going to explain here you can read more on Wikipedia. It showed this format: Format: Windows NT File System (NTFS) I then right-clicked the external drive icon on Mac desktop > Get Info.

If I wanted to use it with Mac OS or Time Machine backup (which is my intent), I’ll need to format the drive for my Mac. It brought me to a webpage on Seagate’s site, where it clearly indicated the drive was initially set up to work with a Windows PC.

Since I wanted to use it on Mac, I clicked the blue logo with the text “Start_Here-Mac”. When I opened it, the default content was all there. When I connected the Seagate to my Mac, the drive icon showed up like this. I bought a brand new 2TB Seagate Expansion to backup my MacBook Pro before I updated it to the latest macOS. Most External Hard Drives Are Initiated with NTFSĭuring the last several years, I’ve used a few external drives, including a 500GB WD My Passport, 32GB Lexar flash drive, and a few others. How to Partition an External Hard Drive on Mac.

How to Format an External Drive for Mac.Most External Hard Drives Are Initiated with NTFS.

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