
- #HOW TO REFORMAT HARD DRIVE IN MAC HOW TO#
- #HOW TO REFORMAT HARD DRIVE IN MAC FOR MAC#
- #HOW TO REFORMAT HARD DRIVE IN MAC PORTABLE#
#HOW TO REFORMAT HARD DRIVE IN MAC HOW TO#
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 IN MAC FOR MAC#
Here it is, Disk Utility, where you can easily format the external hard drive for Mac or any connected drive.
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Type in "Disk Utility" in the search field.To format a hard drive for Mac, choose Disk Utility in the list and click Continue.īut if you only need to format a volume (or a partition), you can access Disk Utility without entering a Recovery Mode.

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 IN 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.
