When it comes to the format, there are many choices, and the choice depends on how the flash drive is going to be used. Type a meaningful description in the Name field (I usually avoid using special symbols, underscores, and spaces). You need to provide three pieces of information: Name, Format, and Size. Since this is a brand new drive, it won’t have partitions like this:Ĭlick on the Partition button in the top toolbar of the app. On the left side of the app, locate the flash drive. This will open the Disk Utility app.Īnother way to open the app is to use the Spotlight Search: press simultaneously Command and Space bar keys and type “Disk Utility” in the search bar. If the drive was never used before (and does not contain any valuable data), then click on the Initialize button. If the USB drive was not formatted, then the first time you plug it into the Mac, you will see the error message “The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer” with the options to Initialize, Ignore and Reject. In some cases, the drives were not formatted at all. Most flash drives that you can purchase are preformatted in the Windows format (because there are more PC users than Mac users).

The drive that has been used in Windows or another operating system.

It is possible that the drive was not formatted in a disk format compatible with macOS.

There are two special cases when a USB drive may not be accessible, but not because it was corrupted.

Make sure the drive is correctly formattedĦ Solutions to Fix Flash Drives on Mac Verify the USB drive was formatted for compatibility with macOS.Full Disclosure Here… How to quickly fix an unreadable usb flash drive on Mac? If you buy through affiliate links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

Format flash drive mac