Great video. Just the information I needed. In case anyone also has a Linux machine, exFat is also compatible. So, you can share files with all three operating systems.
That was very informative! I recently updated my mac to macOS big sur, and it only allows the APFS option when formating, and it doesn't seem to work on my pc. What can I do to make sure my external drive works on both my mac and pc? Thank you in advance!
Normally you can leave the other options alone but for the Scheme here is some info from MacWorld - www.macworld.com/article/234613/how-to-format-a-thumb-drive-for-both-mac-and-windows.html
Extremely helpful!!! Strangely enough, the formatting doesn't work with an M1 Mac. It tells me, that the drive is full, no space available. Fortunately I still have a Mac mini with Intel, and there it worked perfectly. Both have Monterey, but some features don't work on the Intel-based device. I really appreciate your very succinct and clear explanation, it helped me a good deal.
Thanks. That's weird as I formatted just fine on my M1 MacBook Air. It might be a difference in the external SSD we are both using though. Thanks for sharing and for watching.
Excellent, exFAT has always been the option for this kind of task, you just forgot something, what about the scheme, basically before "erasing" we have GUID, Master Boot Record and Apple Partition Map, which one to choose for a regular external disk that I want to share files between PC and a Mac? Thank you!
Great video. Thanks for the info. Any good information about how cloud storage can/should be integrated into the equation? I have about 5 years of professional documents in every format other than exFAT but now have a Mac. Could I just upload all the files to a cloud and then download them into the drive of choice with the format of choice?
I have Seagate external drive, currently it is NTFS formatted, if I now format it to the HFS+, use it with Mac and after few months if I again want to use it with Windows, my question is can I again format it to NTFS?
Your video was very helpful, thank you. I have an old Mac (Snow Leopard) I want to backup all my photos from the Mac and then transfer to my Windows 10, will this work?
How can I do this in reverse?? I have an external harddrive that I partitioned several years ago so that it would work with both my Mac and my PC. I no longer have the PC and would like to get rid of the partition so I can have all the space for my Mac back ups. I can't seem to find how to do this in RU-vid land! Thanks!
Related Subject > ExFat doesn't work on LG & Samsung TVs (surprisingly so) it appears that as a Mac user i will have to use a PC to reformat my external SSD to NTFS in order to view my Files on my TVs, which is a big pain. One would conclude that the TV manufacturers don't won't you to view your own videos on their TVs.
Thanks for the nice words. FAT32 offers near-universal interoperability with virtually every computing system on the planet. A drive formatted this way can easily transfer files between Macs and PCs. The big issue with it is that it can only support files up to 4 GB in size. So that is why it is becoming less attractive as files keep getting larger and larger. Thanks for watching.
Hi Craig, My laptop has double OSes (Win and Mac). I formatted a data drive in exFAT. --- Both Windows OS and Mac OS can read the drive. Mac can easily read/open the files created in Windows OS. However, windows can not see folder/files created by in MacOs. -- From Mac, I can open a Ms Mord file created in Windows. However, once I edit the file in Mac, the file becomes corrupt when I try to open it in Windows OS. --- Can you give me a solution for that? -- Thanks
I bought an 8 TB external Seagate compatible for Mac or PC. I formatted it on FAT32. I lost 6 TB of my drive. I was confused when I saw that I had 1/4 of my drive remaining. The Drive reads as 2 TB now! Someone said that FAT32 only works up to 2 TB. That seems to be my experience. Also, I did not realize that FAT32 could only hold 4 GB files, as I shoot a lot of video. Is there a format that will run (read and write) for large video files that works on Mac, but also on PC when needed? The Seagate I suspect is a spinning drive. So do I need to stay with journaled and forget the compatibility to PC? But then you mentioned that MAC won't be reading old files soon. So that concerns me with not having access by either system. What do you suggest?
That format should do it. Look at the limits on this and it's way higher than 4 GB files and only 2 TB of space en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT . Are you sure you didn't format in fat32?
@@craigneidel I corrected my comment above to state that I was directed to use FAT32 when originally formatting my drive. I had to go purchase a new drive, so I am attempting to get it right this time, so I can transfer my data to the new drive and either return the old new drive or simply reformat it (after transferring all data off of it) to have access to all of the 8 TB and keep it. Thank you, you pointed me in the correct direction to do further research: www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/allocation-unit-size-exfat.html I may not upload the free petition wizard app; however, I am learning information from the link that will assist in deciding if I want to use the default setting or change my unit sizes (to account for video speed or storage space saving capabilities) when I allocate the partitions in my just out of the box new drive.
Hi, great video! Question, if I format to exfat to use for both Mac and Windows, which computer should I use to format the drive? Mac machine or Windows machine? I was looking at another video and that person said it’s better to use a Mac to do the exfat format. Is there a difference whether I format the drive (exfat) using a Mac or Windows computer?
I haven't tested that but assume both work. I do use the Mac for my exfat formats so best bet is just use that if you have a Mac. Thanks for watching hope you can sub if not already.
@@craigneidel thanks for the reply. I was asking because I formatted the drive using my windows pc. Transferred some files onto it. Transferred over to my Mac and couldn’t mount. Used sudo pkill -f fsck and it mounted but only readable. I’ll try formatted on the Mac and see if this happens again.
When you press erase, are you arranging the previous formatting or erasing the content on the existing hard drive? I have a hard drive that has windows content on it (and I want to keep that), but want to add Mac stuff to it.
You are erasing the drive so you need to backup your data, reformat, then move back the the drive you want to use on both Windows and a Mac. Thanks James.
What Mac and OS do you have. Normally you will have the other options. It might also matter depending on the ssd or enclosure you are using but that is pretty rare.
I want to install windows 10 and keep space for my Mac, is ExFat all I need to do? I’ve seen another video saying that I should split the space for each but when I try it won’t let me with ExFat. Do I need to split the storage or just format it as ExFat and it would be fine?
You can use the APFS version unless you want something encrypted. Then you need to put in a password to access it so I would just use the standard APFS. Thanks.
I tried APFS with Paragon APFS for windows. Everything was working great until all files written from windows got removed on reboot. I will format to exFAT now.
I have a mac book. With a toshiba external hard drive thats was set up for windows nfst. is there a way i can change to exfat without losing my music on the external.thanks
So am i able to take my exFat drive from my PC, Where i have movies and stream Plex and Infuse to my tv on, and then move/plug it into my mac mini and it'll be able to play the same movies as it did on the PC?
Yes, in most cases. But if possible you should format the drive as Exfat on the Mac first and then you can move it back and forth between the Mac and PC with no issues.
@@craigneidel but the drive is already connected to the PC. When plugging it into the Mac, after already being formatted to the PC, wouldn’t that delete all the files? Why not format it to EXFAT on the PC first before plugging it into the MAC? Thanks for responding by the way.
Yes, if the drive is already formatted don't format it again unless you have a copy of the data as it would erase it. If you already formatted it with Exfat on the PC you can see if it works on the Mac. Sometimes it doesn't work depending on the drive but I have found it almost always works on both PC and Mac when formatting on the Mac to Exfat. But, in the end both should work as ExFat should work between both OS types. Thanks. @@PhilGoodzGaming
What other ways are there of accessing the same files between Mac and PC? Dropbox? The majority of my files are actually on the PC and I recently bought a MacBook Air for writing.
@@craigneidel thanks! 1T is fine for me. I need to reformat a fresh external where I can take it between the Mac and PC so that I have everything in one place
So I have an ssd and use pc and my buddy runs a mac we have been working on a massive music collection library so what do you recommend to be able to use the library no matter what system the ssd is plugged into
Very well explained. But I still have a question. Do there meanwhile SSD Harddrives exists, which have two ports and you can connect a Mac and a PC the same time? I don't want always to switch. But rather being able to read/write from both Computers on them. A bit like my own dropbox at home. Thx if you could answer that.
Yes, I'm guessing you can get something like a NAS (Network attached Storage) and then connect that to your home network. Then you can save any type of files to that device from a Mac or a PC. Look up NAS on Amazon.
I bought an external hard drive and it was formatted for mac, i put it in my mac and formatted it exfat but my PC still doesn't even see the drive.... ??? help
What if , like lots of folks probly, you have an external hard drive full of data when you used a windows machine but now have a Mac and need to access those files? What are the options?
Not a ton of options. One is to just copy data back to Windows machine and then create a new external drive in ExFat and copy to that. Now that can be on both Mac and PC. There is also some software for the Mac (I have not fully researched but do search on Google) that might be able to read NTFS formatted drives so the Mac can read the PC but that is not always perfect.
Hello! I have an OWC external NAS with four 2TB SSDs in it. I'm looking to format this as ExFat for both Mac and Windows but I also want to merge the drives to basically become an 8TB storage area. NTFS allows me to do this but I can't seem to do it while the drives are ExFat... Is it just impossible?
I have not tried that and will see what I can find. After a very quick search I found this but I would also search on Google as there are a bunch of topics of people trying it - forums.macrumors.com/threads/external-drive-partition-merge.1902302/
is there a way to save the data from an external drive that has been used on a PC before formatting it to exFat so it can be used on both a PC and an iMac?
Hi, I am attempting to copy an internal drive from an older PC that is about 350GB (mostly music and photos) to my newer Mac using an external 8GB drive. I successfully formatted the external drive using exfat. However, I can not get the PC drive to backup to the external drive. Incidentally I am able to backup individual files to the external drive, but the backup option for the entire drive will not work. Each time that I attempt this, I receive a pop up message that an unexpected error occurred because the volume is dirty. I could backup the files individually to the external drive Hi, I am attempting to copy an internal drive from an older PC that is about 350GB (mostly music and photos) to my newer Mac using an external 8GB drive. I successfully formatted the external drive using exfat. However, I can not get the PC to backup to the external drive. Incidentally I am able to backup individual files to the external drive, but the backup option will not work. but that would take considerably longer than just being able to backup the entire drive at once. Any ideas or thoughts? Thanks!!!
@@craigneidel thanks, I just received my Samsung t7 1tb ssd. Actually it’s quite plug and play type for all three windows, android and iPad. I didnt format a thing
I formatted on my Mac and it worked on the PC so not sure and it might be depended on the actual drive. I would just try it when you do it on any drive you pick up and you will know which way it needs to be formatted. Thanks for sharing.
@@craigneidel Ok... just one of the comments below says they bought a Mac formatted HD and re-formatted to exFAT from a Mac but then the PC couldn't detect it... just something I've also heard before...
I have a formatted mac hard disk and i can not open it on my windows and i cant find it in my pc either. Iknow that i can change it to exFAT on a mac BUT i do not own mac or macbook. Do you know a solution?
What if you saved everything from your PC onto a external disc with Windows NT File System and then want to be able to access that hard drive on your Mac? If I erase and change formats then I will loose what is on the disk correct?
Buy a new SSD/HD then format it to exFat.You will than be able to transfer your files to that new SSD/HD. After that you will be able to use that new SSD/HD with a Mac.
I haven't had any issues with them at all. Are you issues on the Windows or Mac Side. Try formatting with the Mac first to ExFat and then it should work on PC etc.
@@craigneidel It's on both. I even tried to move the content to another SSD but the problem still resists. And yes I did use Mac to format the drive to ExFat. It's fine if it stays plugged in but if I unplug it (of course I ejected it first) then it becomes a pain in the butt to get it to connect again so I just keep plugging and unplugging it over and over again with hope that it will connect. I once somehow managed to connect it to a classmate's laptop but it needed initializing which indicate the drive was being plugged and unplugged incorrectly constantly (probably).
@@craigneidel It's weird both 2 of my ssds have the same issue. I tried plugging one into a dock a few days ago but it didn't work. Now I try that again and it's working fine.
Hi. I just watched this video and it was very interesting. Here's my issue. I have several external hard drives full of music that I would like to reformat to use on my Mac. All of these hard drives were formatted on a pc. I am a DJ and I use my gear with a mac but I have been told that the audio problems I have been experiencing are because I formatted the hard drives on a pc and not on a mac. How can I reformat the hard drives to be used on a mac? Is this possible or do I need to start fresh with a new hard drive and redownload or repurchase all of my music? Thanks.
Unfortunately you will need to copy the data off the drive to your PC first. Then once you have that backed up (double check) reformat to ExFat and then copy back to transfer to a MAC. Or you can use some type of cloud storage to copy to Mac and then reformat external drive once you confirm you have the data on the MAC. So in a nutshell there is really no way to reformat while keeping your data on the drive.
@@craigneidel Thanks for replying. I already started copying music off my hard drive and backing it up. I decided to store my music directly to my Mac and no longer use an external hard drive. I will be testing my music as I use it. Hopefully this will do the trick. Thanks again.
Hi there I like the channel - very informative - a little fast for people my (72) . So, I have the "BOTH" situation and my question is - can I format (exfat) my external drive 3TB Moving drive from my Mac while it is connected to my PC Laptop and has files that I need on it? Patrick from Germany
Thanks for the nice words. If you format the drive it erases everything on it so you really need to first copy the files somewhere else, format, and copy back. Otherwise you will lose the data. Thanks for watching and I hope that helps.
