#Macbook external hard drive size change partition tap how to#

How to Format an External Drive for Mac (from NTFS to Mac OS Extended) The problem is that on macOS, you canвЂ™t work with files saved on an NTFS drive unless you use a paid app like Paragon NTFS for Mac.

What is NTFS? IвЂ™m not going to explain here you can read more on Wikipedia. I then right-clicked the external drive icon on Mac desktop > Get Info. If I wanted to use it with Mac OS or Time Machine backup (which is my intent), IвЂ™ll need to format the drive for my Mac. It brought me to a webpage on SeagateвЂ™s site, where it clearly indicated the drive was initially set up to work with a Windows PC. Since I wanted to use it on Mac, I clicked the blue logo with the text вЂњStart_Here-MacвЂќ. When I opened it, the default content was all there. When I connected the Seagate to my Mac, the drive icon showed up like this. Three weeks ago, I bought a brand new 2TB Seagate Expansion to backup my MacBook Pro before I updated it to the latest macOS. Most External Hard Drives Are Initiated with NTFSДuring the last several years, IвЂ™ve used a few external drives, including a 500GB WD My Passport, 32GB Lexar flash drive, and a few others. I highly recommend you also create multiple partitions. Pro tip: If your external drive has a large volume, like mine вЂ“ a 2TB Seagate Expansion. The operation will erase all data and your files will be gone for good. Important note: If you have useful files stored on the external drive, be sure to copy or transfer them to another safe place prior to formatting. Just follow this easy step-by-step guide and youвЂ™re all set. In this post, IвЂ™m going to show you how to format your external drive for a Mac-compatible file system i.e. Apple Mac machines support a different file system. ThatвЂ™s all because itвЂ™s been initialized with Windows NT File System (NTFS), which is primarily for PCs. But somehow, macOS doesnвЂ™t allow you to write data to the drive.

So, you just bought a new external hard drive or a portable SSD and wanted to use it on your Mac.