The largest file it supports is 2^32 – 1 bytes, which is a little less than 4GB. The downside of FAT32 file format is a file size limit. The advantage of FAT32 is that it is compatible with Macs. With files getting larger and larger Microsoft kept extending the number of bytes they supported until they released FAT32.įAT32 is still a DOS file format, but since Microsoft supports anything they built 40 years ago, you still can use it. The old format was designed in 1978 as an 8-bit file system.

It’s the oldest Microsoft file format originally developed for MS-DOS. FAT32įAT stands for File Allocation Table. Formatįrom the table above, you can see that two formats fully supported by macOS and Windows: FAT32 and exFAT. You just substitute external hard drive with USB flash drive, and the instructions will remain the same.īefore we make any irreversible changes, let me give you a quick overview of file formats supported in both systems. So let me show you how easy it is to format an external hard drive, so it works on both Mac and PC.īy the way, everything written here applies to USB flash drives as well. Probably, your external hard drive works on pc but not Mac. If you are reading this article, I bet you have the same problem. Windows responded cheerfully with a warning sound and displayed its famous “You need to format the disk in drive D: before you can use it. I copied files from Mac to my favorite Samsung T5 portable drive and plugged it into the PC. But yesterday, for some reason I needed to copy some files from Mac to a PC laptop. Typically, I use them for different purposes, so I never need to share data between computers.

External disk format for mac and pc