Gary I am a new MACBOOK owner today was day one. After setting up this new MacBook I spent several hours watching your videos. Wow what a lifesaver you were for me I believe I am security wise now! As others have said I will continue watching your great content!
This is my first video, yesterday I bought a Mac, I wanted to create a recovery USB drive, I searched how to format a drive and I saw this complete guide. Thank you so much dude! You earnt a sub and a like!!
Excellent video, Gary! Thank you! You answered all my questions in this video. It’s been ages since I’ve used a flash drive and needed a nice calm, thorough tutorial, just like you provided. New subscriber! 🤓
Thank you so much for the lesson.... You just taught this old dog new tricks in a way that it was easy to understand..... I'll be watching from now on. Peggy
Gary-great video and just what I needed. bought my 1st USB flash drive this month and it works with A and C, just like yours. I never knew the drive could be formatted. Seems easy to use EXFAT so that it supports both. Thank you!
when i took out my usb and put it back in for the second time of use i couldnt see the usb file on my screen but the first time i put it in it worked, what should i do? edit: i realised the light wasnt on my usb so i plugged it in again and it worked
Oh my God Gary! Astonishing work! You showed me what I needed to know and more. That command key tip is gonna go a long way for what I was trying to get done. Tysm! 🤙
Thank you for teaching me how to work with flash drives on my Mac. Now I have to figure out how to take the photos from the flash drive and play them on my tv like a pan digital frame! Lol
Great video.. can I still fortmat my flash drive if I have video files in it? I have some videos that do not open in my Mac and Macbook pro, and believe it's because of its formatting.. will I lose my files if I format it?
WOW! YOU have to be the most comprehensive HOW TO I have founfd .. and boy have I been looking! I do have a question ... I need to free up a ton of space on my macbook pro ... Is it possible to take ALL the photos on my mac onto a USBC? Then delete them from my mac? SAFELY? ...
Gary, Great video, I am seeing it second time since I need to do some related work. One point off the subject, if you can tell us which brand USB is good to have both USB A and C in two sides
Good video. I'm trying to figure out how to download a large file directly to my external flash drive? I have minimal space left on my MacBook and so with to download a large file direct to flash drive. Really confused how to do this on a Mac, used to be a PC user....Can you assist?
Control+click on the link to the file (AKA right click or two fingers on the trackpad) and then select the option to download to a location. Then select the folder on the external drive where you want it to go.
How do you drag around files and folders, and still keep them in the same position that you put them in when you put the USB back in? It automatically puts them in rows and columns again when I unplug it and put it back in, versus the custom positions I need them in to organize them.
Hello macmostvideo thanks for getting back so quickly, appreciate the advice. I use a USB to play movies on for my elderly mother. Is there a different format I could use perhaps?? I bought her a new Smart TV and usually with a 32GB USB no problem and it plays most formats. I just wanted to get something a little bit bigger so I did'nt have to erase it so many time. Really do appreciate your help Many thanks Para742
Um Question. I brought a PNY attaché USB 2.0 flags drive and I wanna only use it for extra storage... So will the same instructions help? (I just immediately found I needed space on my Macbook Air so this is new for me).
Gary, how do we access the Patreon discount you mentioned? It comes up as an insecure site and then on your macmost website there is nothing about the discount. Please specify, I was just yesterday contemplating their services! Thanks for this tutorial, I subscribed!
Hi, I recently got a Macbook Air M1. I got USB C-type compatible to Mac OS and tried on the Mac but it doesn’t recognize the USB nor a way to format the Mac for USB. Could you please help? Your videos are very educational. Thank you so much!
@@macmost Thanks for your reply. Yes, USB drive.Though I plugged it in to the Mac, does not appear either on the desktop nor Finder. After reading your response, I checked the Disk Utility. I see no "external storage" in the Disk Utility. Do you think something is wrong with the USB drive?
ive known some people on windows to just remove the drive while a file is still being written to the drive (I remember when i was at school x number of years ago the teacher asked us to save a copy of our work to the USB, and when the USB was passed to me, when i put a copy of my work on the drive i noticed that there were some corrupted files on the drive)
What are the OTHER 960 GB ~ this has always been my issue with Mac!! How does Other get filled up and how do you get rid of it? Apple has not been able to help me with this question! thank you
Hello there, I have a 2TB USB and I have changed the settings to MS-DOS Fat32 so I can play movies on my TV, however, the drive only takes a certain amount and then other folders I put across appear empty and no files can be shown or seen (but space is taken up??) I never have issues with other smaller size USB's at this setting. I got the larger size to lessen the amount of times I have to erase the smaller sizes. Can you offer any advice on how to fix this issue please. I have searched everywhere on youtube and I have come up blank. By the way, this is for a mac computer. Many Thanks
I think FAT32 only supports 32GB in size. If your TV only works with FAT32, then you are limited. Why not get a streaming device like Apple TV so you can just stream directly to the TV without messing about with drives that need to be physically connected?
Wow just the video I was looking for. Now I did the whole dragging and dropping this afternoon and all I got was a 🚫 symbol against my files. And I was not able to transfer anything. Quite a nightmare. I have no idea what I was doing wrong. I couldn’t even copy the files. It didn’t give me the paste option when I right clicked. The drive was a 1TB external hard drive .. I had a presentation to get out and I was in a real fix today!
@@macmost hey sir, what's the best external hardware to save movies or tv shows on? is a SanDisk USB good or should I go with a Lacie or G Technology external SSD?
@@MF-kv8cn SanDisk is a big company with a lot of USB devices. Not sure which one you mean. If you want speed and reliability, get a real drive, not a "USB Flash Drive" though. SSD is probably overkill if you are just storing media on them.
@@macmost hello again. thank you for your replies and help. For the Sandisk USB I was referring to the Cruzer Glide 128Gb, and what do you mean by a "real drive"? Could you please give me an example. Thank you.
Not sure what you mean by "what would happen." Changing the format would mean erasing the drive, for one. But once it was ExFAT you could use it on Windows, and you can use it on Mac too, though only for basic file storage.
Just came across your channel and info what format is ok to use I am copying music from a cd unit to the usb but need r To format it as it has old music on it any help
Thanks Gary. We're trying to format a bunch of USB A/C 3.0 drives for our Mac club. We want them to also be able to read on an iPad. Would ExFAT GUID be the best format? Do we format both the partition and the main thumbdrive levels the same? We're having problem with very slow transfer (30 - 40 min for 9 GB) or running First aid on the partition and coming up with Unable to unmount. Sometimes drive doesn't show on desktop. Is it how we're formatting or the drives? Thank you. We're so confused!
ExFAT is for Windows. iPad should be OK with them, but why use a Windows format? If these are for iPad, use APFS. See support.apple.com/guide/ipad/external-storage-devices-ipad75b7b23f/ipados It sounds to me like these are poor Flash drives. These cheap drives are handy, but they slow down a ton when they get hot, and they get hot almost immediately. Then sometimes they stop working completely. Sounds like a bad batch or just a poorly-made device.
I did a bunch of tutorials on the iPad back when iPadOS came out -- to covert the new stuff -- back in October. I also came out with a while iPadOS course at that time. I've never tried to format or erase a drive on the iPad though. That may not be a feature yet.
Should I reformat a new USB flash drive to Exfat if I'm going to download files using my Mac onto the USB flash drive but I will be transferring them to an XBOX ONE X , which is Microsoft?
Please HELP! Tried reformatting brand new 2T thumb drive on my new Mac (big Sur) per your instructions. Only have ExFat, Mac OS extended options (besides DOS of course). I first chose ExFat, thinking it would be more versatile, in case I need to access files via a windows machine one day. The "Scheme" default was Master Boot Record. Hit "erase" and Operation FAILED. ??? Now, I've tried same steps with Mac OS Extended, still a big FAIL. So now I'm wondering if I need to change partitian to GUID or APPLE rather than MASTER BOOT??? Thanks!
@@macmost thanks for your reply! Will order new one. Do you recommend any particular 2T thumb drive for Mac? Or even something larger if there is one (thumb)? Ty
@@jeffhenderson3184 In general I stay away from thumb drives. Maybe small ones for a specific use. They are slow and overheat often, making them slower. I'd get a simple portable HDD or SSD. Both are much more reliable. It really depends on what you are using it for.
Got a new car that has only a USB port to enter music and especially audio books from CDs. The car user group says, to formata drisk drive to FAT32. But isnt a FAT32 drive limited to file size and limited name? But the new xFat has no restrictions. What would you recommend? Plus, do you have recommendations on how to rip the audio CD on to the flash drive. I enjoyed your video about the USB. Did not know some USB drives have the USB-C and USB connectors, saving all those pig tails. Thanks, Skip
Im not sure about on mac, but windows wont allow a drive larger than 32GB to be formated it as FAT32, and the max file size is 4GB (the maximum partition size of FAT32 is apparently 8TB) exFAT does have file size and capacity restrictions, but the maximum file size is larger than the largest SSD that a mac can have in it (the largest file size appears to be larger than any storage drive that consumers would be able to get their hands on, and the maximum partition size is a value so large i dont think i would be able to type it out in bytes)
@@macmost I figured it out thanks… I did that at first and it still didn’t allow.. I had to force eject and then reinstall the flash drive and then it worked because it wasn’t stuck in “running” limbo lol Thanks
You can use it, but not everything will work well and there are limitations. If you plan on using it only for your Mac from now on, I would copy the data off of the drive, erase it and format as APFS, and then put the files back on it after.
@@macmost would I be able to plug the F32 drive in the Mac, and put a second drive in and format it to APFS, and just drag/copy everything from the FAT32 drive to the APFS one?
Hi Gary can’t find a logical place to post this, hence asking here. Just wondering if it’s okay to rename one’s main Mac Hard Disk from the default Macintosh HD to anything else (just alphabets and spaces). And is there any time when it’s not okay to do so. Say, while reformatting one’s machine. Or otherwise. I suspect it is ok to do so but I wonder what the official (and correct) stance is. Thanks for everything!
You can always ask me questions at macmost.com/forum -- that's what it is for. As far as naming your drive something else, sure. I see it all the time. I don't see any point to having it be something else, but you can name it what you like. Apple even says so: support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/rename-files-folders-and-disks-on-mac-mchlp1144/mac
