Aug 30, 2019 Indeed, one of the reasons to use the Terminal to format a USB drive on Mac is to stick to a procedure that is readily available on your stock OS. Note: if you want to use your pen drive to burn the disk image of Windows 10, then you have to use MBR for your boot loader partition. Connect the flash drive that you want to format. Go to Applications and Utilities and launch Disk Utility. The application will appear on the screen, and you will see the main window, with a list of available storage devices on the left and various disk management options on the right. When using Disk Utility 16.3 with macOS Sierra to format a 'thumbdrive' USB 3 Lexar flash drive (64 gigs), when I choose a Format of ‘Mac OS Extended (Journaled)’, I get a list of three Scheme item.

by Shirly Chen, updated on 2019-07-08 to Mac Data Wipe

USB drives and external hard drives on macOS Catalina are used for storing and backing up important data such as photos, videos, audios, images, notes, messages, music files, PDF files, Word documents, among other files. Sometimes, we delete some of these files because we do not need them, but they remain somewhere and can be retrieved from the same device or using a data recovery software. In some cases, we want to carry out this task in a permanent way, but we do not have any idea about how to do it. Here, we will show you how to permanently format and delete your files and so prevent a possible data recovery.

Three ways to format USB flash drive, external hard drive on macOS Catalina

There are many tools can help you format USB flash drive, portable hard drive, memory card or other storage device on macOS Catalina. Here, we will show you three ways to format USB flash drive, external hard drive, etc on macOS Catalina.

1. Format USB flash drive/external hard drive with Disk Utility on macOS Catalina

Disk Utility is a built-in disk management application on macOS Catalina. You can run it to format the USB flash drive, external hard drive on macOS Catalina. But, the formatted data can be recovered by Mac data recovery software.

2. Format USB flash drive/external hard drive with MacClean360 on macOS Catalina

MacClean360 also offers disk management tool, disk manager. This tool can help you securely and quickly format USB flash drive, external hard drive under macOS Catalina. The formatted data also can be recovered by Mac data recovery software.

3. Format USB flash drive/external hard drive and permanently wipe data on macOS Catalina

Format Thumb Drive Mac Os

If we are planning to sell, donate or dispose our USB flash drive or external hard drive to another person, we should format them to clean up all data, even this is also an option if we want to recover their complete storage. Maybe, we do not know how to format our device properly and permanently to avoid retrieving our private files. here, we will help you choose the best way to format/wipe your device on macOS Catalina; you can use DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac, which is highly recommended by users.

DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac can help you format USB flash drive, External hard drive or other device on macOS Catalina. And it will permanently wipe all data from the USB flash drive or device. Once the USB flash drive/external hard drive is formatted by this software, all data on the USB flash drive/external hard drive will be gone forever, can’t be recovered by any data recovery method. So, before you format your USB flash drive or external hard drive with DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac, you’d better back up your data to a safe location.

The steps to format USB flash drive/external hard drive on macOS Catalina are pretty simple.

Step 1: Download DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac.

Download and install this disk formatting tool for macOS Catalina. Then run it from Launchpad. And connect the USB flash drive or external hard drive with your Mac.

Using Thumb Drive On Mac

Step 2: Format and wipe the USB flash drive/external hard drive on macOS Catalina.

Choose mode “Wipe Hard Drive”, then choose the targeted device and click on “Wipe Now” button. Then the selected USB flash drive or external hard drive will be formatted and all data on the selected device will be permanently erased.

The three ways above can help you securely and easily format USB flash drive, external hard drive on macOS Catalina. We strongly recommend DoYourData Super Eraser for Mac. It will help you format and wipe data before you sell, donate, or give away your hard drive, USB flash drive, memory card, digital camera, portable hard drive, etc.

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