when usb says for mac does that also mean windows

Unless you are planning on utilizing the drive between a Windows and Mac, it is recommended to format it entirely on a Mac compatible filesystem. If you have a USB drive formatted as FAT 32 or any other format other than the Mac OS Extended (HFS+) or APFS, it is best to format the drive. It is important to note that drives formatted as FAT32 can be read from and written to by a Mac OS, but it is not considered optimal and you might face issues in the long run. How to Format A USB Drive to FAT32 on Mac? Part 4. What is The Best Format for USB Drive on Mac? Part 3. Just move onto the first part in this post, then you will get what you want.Īrticle Guide Part 1. If you want to learn how to format USB on Mac for Windows, the steps are relatively easy to do.

Linking an external hard drive or USB flash disk to a Mac usually works fine since the Mac OS can easily decipher other types of filesystem formats including Windows MS-DOS, FAT, FAT32, NTFS, and ExFAT formats. When using a brand new external hard drive or flash disk, it is vital to ensure compatibility by formatting the drive to the Mac OS Extended filesystem.Įssentially, it is vital for those who are using generic PC drives which are pre-formatted to be Windows compatible instead for the Mac OS.

When usb says for mac does that also mean windows