How to Format USB Flash Drive on Mac?

Summary: how to format USB flash drive on Mac? It is very simple. In this article, we will show you two simple methods to format USB flash drive on Mac and introduce an easy method to permanently erase all data from an USB flash drive on Mac so that the data in the USB flash drive won't be recovered by any data recovery software.

“Hi, my USB flash drive gets corrupted and needs to be formatted...is there any method to format it on mac?” - Katty

There are many reasons why you want to format an USB flash drive on Mac. Whether you are going to dispose of an old USB flash drive or fix corruption issue on a USB flash drive, you can format the USB flash drive. And not every USB flash drive can be used on your Mac, formatting is the best method to create a compatible file system on the USB flash drive so that it can be used on your Mac.

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1. Format USB flash drive on Mac using Disk Utility.

Disk Utility is a built-in disk management tool in macOS. It can help you format hard drive and external device. Follow the steps below to format an USB flash drive with Disk Utility.

Step 1. Open Launchpad, find Disk Utility and run it on your Mac.

Step 2. Insert the USB flash drive into your Mac.

Step 3. Find the USB flash drive in Disk Utility. Click it.

Step 4. Click on Erase button.

Step 5. Choose a file system and then erase the USB flash drive.

2. Format USB flash drive on Mac using data eraser.

Donemax Data Eraser for Mac is a powerful, safe and easy-to-use data erasure application. It also can help you quickly format an USB flash drive on Mac. Follow the steps below:

Step 1. Download and install Donemax Data Eraser for Mac, then open it from Launchpad.

Step 2. Select tool Disk Format.

Step 3. Select the USB flash drive and click on Format button. Then it will quickly format the USB flash drive.

3. Recover lost data after formatting USB flash drive on Mac.

After formatting your USB flash drive, the lost data in the formatted USB flash drive still can be recovered by data recovery software. If you don't have a backup of your USB flash drive data, just follow the steps below to get lost data back.

Step 1. Download and install a powerful data recovery application - Donemax Data Recovery for Mac. Connect your USB flash drive to your Mac.

Step 2. Select the USB flash drive to start data recovery.

Step 3. Click on Scan button. Donemax Data Recovery for Mac will deeply scan the formatted USB flash drive and find all lost files.

Step 4. Once the scan is completed, you are able to preview all recoverable files. Then select the wanted files and save them.

4. Permanently erase data from USB flash drive.

Before you sell, donate your dispose of an old USB flash drive, you'd better permanently wipe all data from it so that no information can be recovered by new owners. As you've seen, the formatted data can be easily recovered by data recovery software, so you need to a special data erasure tool to help you wipe data from your USB flash drive.

Donemax Data Eraser for Mac offers certified data erasure methods including HMG Infosec Standard 5 (1 pass), Peter Gutmann's algorithm 2 (2 passes), U.S. Army AR380-19 (3 passes), DoD 5220.22-M ECE (7 passes), Peter Gutmann's algorithm 35 (35 passes). It can help you securely format and wipe an USB flash drive on Mac. Once the data in the USB flash drive is erased by Donemax Data Eraser for Mac, the erased data will be lost forever, can't be recovered by any data recovery software.

Follow the steps below to wipe USB flash drive on Mac:

Step 1. Run Donemax Data Eraser for Mac and choose data erasure mode - Erase Hard Drive.

Step 2. Choose the USB flash drive.

Step 3. Click on Erase button. Then this software will format and wipe the USB flash drive.

Once the process gets finished, all data on the USB flash drive will be gone forever, can't be recovered by any data recovery software.