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. 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 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. 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. 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. If you’re ready, click “OK.” Warning: You’re about to lose all of the data on the drive. Make sure that the USB drive is either blank or that you already have a backup first. When you see a “Format Complete” window, click “OK.” Windows will format the drive with the exFAT file system. The next time that you open File Explorer, you’ll see the formatted USB drive in your “Devices and Drives” list. You can copy data to the drive as you normally would, and the drive will also be readable and writable on a Mac.

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.Before you format your USB drive, you need to think about which file system to use. Format thumb drive for mac and pc how to# File Systems are simply ways of organizing data on a storage device (such as hard drives or SD Cards).

Support for various file systems varies depending on your operating system. Windows 10 offers three file system options when formatting a USB drive: FAT32, NTFS, and exFAT.

Format thumb drive for mac and pc windows 10# * You may need to install drivers to get exFAT compatibility on Linux * Provides an unlimited file and partition size * Devices that need to be plugged into a variety of operating systems * Removable storage devices such as USB Flash Drives * Cannot handle single files larger than 4GB * Compatible with all major operating systems Here is the breakdown of the pros and cons of each filesystem.

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