
- #HOW TO REFORMAT HARD DRIVE FOR MAC HOW TO#
- #HOW TO REFORMAT HARD DRIVE FOR MAC FOR MAC#
- #HOW TO REFORMAT HARD DRIVE FOR MAC MAC OS#
- #HOW TO REFORMAT HARD DRIVE FOR MAC PORTABLE#
- #HOW TO REFORMAT HARD DRIVE FOR MAC PASSWORD#
What if you can't reformat an external hard drive on your Mac? If your Mac is a new one with an SSD drive, the Security Options may not be available.ģ. If you want to erase the volume securely, select Security Options and choose them.
#HOW TO REFORMAT HARD DRIVE FOR MAC MAC OS#
Then, run Time Machine from your Launchpad.ĭisk Utility will make you choose between APFS and Mac OS Extended. To prepare the backup, plug in an external drive with enough free space on it. But if that's what you aimed to do, proceed with caution. If you accidentally format a part that contains your operating system, you'll have problems. Your Mac's hard drive may contain a number of partitions, including a separate partition for the macOS itself.

If you're looking to format or reformat an external hard drive on your Mac, there are a couple of safety precautions.
#HOW TO REFORMAT HARD DRIVE FOR MAC HOW TO#
How to reformat an external hard drive safely To slim down your Time Machine backups, click on the Maintenance tab in CleanMyMac X. Follow our guide on how to thin Time Machine snapshots. If it doesn’t, you can do it yourself from within Time Machine, using Terminal, or using an app like CleanMyMac X which has a module designed specifically for slimming down old Time Machine backups. Time Machine will normally warn you when free space is low and offer to delete backups automatically. If you use an external hard drive for Time Machine and find that it’s running out of space, you may need to delete older backups. How to clear space on a Time Machine hard drive Please, be extra careful and pay attention to what is actually selected. The same works for any type of drive, be it a USB stick or external storage. Select the drive you would like to format and click "Erase" at the top of the pane.
#HOW TO REFORMAT HARD DRIVE FOR MAC FOR MAC#
Here it is, Disk Utility, where you can easily format the external hard drive for Mac or any connected drive.

#HOW TO REFORMAT HARD DRIVE FOR MAC PASSWORD#
Choose an administrator account, enter your password and click Continue.Release the keys when the Apple logo appears.Upon the startup, press and hold Command-R.Shut down your Mac and turn it back on.To use macOS Recovery on Intel-based Macs: Type in your password and click Continue.Click an administrator account and hit the Next button.Press the power button on your Mac and hold it until “Loading startup options” shows up.To start up your Apple silicon-based Mac in Recovery: Suppose you'd like to format a hard drive that is your startup drive. Then, you'll need to start your Mac in a Recovery Mode. How to format a hard drive for Mac using Disk UtilityĪpple's Disk Utility is the tool you need to format and erase your drive. But before that, you'll have to decide: are you erasing just a volume on your drive or your main startup drive? The latter contains your macOS, and if you erase it without a prior backup, you'll be in trouble. Let's figure out how to format the following types of volumes: How to format an external hard drive on Mac

How you go about cleaning up depends on what you use the external drive for, so here’s our guide on how to format an external hard drive on Mac. But those drives too quickly fill up, and so it’s useful to know how to clean up an external hard drive. That, in turn, has meant that many of us now have at least one external hard drive, SSD, or USB stick on which to store files.
#HOW TO REFORMAT HARD DRIVE FOR MAC PORTABLE#
The transition from hard drives to solid-state storage on both portable and desktop Macs has meant a significant reduction in storage space for most of us. But to help you do it all by yourself, we’ve gathered our best ideas and solutions below.įeatures described in this article refer to the MacPaw site version of CleanMyMac X. So here's a tip for you: Download CleanMyMac to quickly solve some of the issues mentioned in this article.
