In the finder sidebar, click the eject button next to the items name. This page covers two parts of effective solutions to resolve usb flash drive not showing up on mac issue. How to start up your mac from a bootable cddvd, usb thumb. Semantically, the situation is identical to storing it on the flash drive. How to open an external drive thats not showing on mac. Jan 17, 2018 mac or macbook cant detect my external drive. Information about these and other types of mac ports is in the specifications for your mac. Installing windows 7 with usb flash drive on macbook air. I am able to open the drive and can even copy files from the drive. Open the disk utility app and highlight your external hard drive. It plugs directly into pcs and macs with either a newer usbc port or usba, is roughly the size of a matchbox and being a flash storage device. The 8 best external hard drives and ssds for mac and pc users in. Eject a storage device usb drive, flash drive, or other device on your mac, do one of the following.
How to install macos on an external drive macworld uk. If your mac doesnt work, you can do this using a second mac and an external hard drive caddy. How to open a flash drive on a macbook air computer quora. Its easy to reformat your hard drive using disk utility in macos or os x. When you try to plug in the drive again, your mac no longer sees it. May 31, 2019 we will go over how to use a usb drive, thumb drive, flash drive, pendrive, etc, on a mac computer aka apple macintosh like a macbook pro, imac, mac mini, or mac pro.
Lacie 2tb mobile drive external hard drive usbc usb 3. Because apple is so stingy with storage you get just 128gb in the entrylevel macbook air and macbook pro having a good external hard drive for macs is. Not with a flash drive, but with an external drive. If you dont know it by now, upgrading the ssd in the macbook or imac youre buying will cost you a fortune a lot more than it would to buy an. As we race ahead into the era of cloud storage, its worth keeping an eye on our friend the usb flash drive, which has by no means expired. Storing my itunes library on an external flash drive in a. Locate large hidden files on your mac with cleanmymac x. Feb 21, 2020 if your external hard drive, flash drive, or sd card, etc. Easily find compatible ssds for any apple macbook air 2008 2017 and upgrade up to 2. Typec flash drive iphone usb flash drive 128 gb high speed memory stick 3 in 1 thumb drive jump drive for android, samsung, iphone, macbook, pc and more devices gold 4. How to cope with just 128gb of ssd storage on your mac.
This guide provides 2 ways to boot a mac from a usb flash drive. Jan 14, 2019 want your drive to be very small and very capacious. How to revitalize your old macbook air with a new ssd. How to access an external drive on iphone or ipad simply mac. If youve recently upgraded to a new imac or macbook pro, youre probably going to need an optical drive if you want to continue importing your movies and music to itunes, or just access the content on your discs. Apple mac upgrades ram, ssd flash, external drives and more. When you connect an external hard drive to your mac, it appears on the devices menu in finder. Mar 19, 2020 if youre not sure which port to use with your external display, hard drive, camera, printer, iphone, ipad, or other device, the port shapes and symbols in this guide should help. We also provide refurbished macs, external storage, docks, accessories, and more. Backup your mac with a portable or desktop hard drive. This reduced power draw helps preserve the battery life of the mac you plug the drive into. Heres what you need to know, along with our toprated applefriendly drives. How to transfer files from macbook air on apple community.
This situation often occurs after you initially eject the external drive and unplug it from your computer. Reply to ungodly slow usb stick speeds i have a macbook pro early 2011 running high sierra version 10. Plus find out how to back up your entire icloud photos library. Installing windows 10 on an external usb drive on a macbook. It can be done so save you money and dont buy a dvd drive. If your macbook is not mounting an external hard drive or flash drive, try plugging in the power cable to the macbook and reconnecting the drive. Format a usb drive as exfat for mac and windows compatibility.
Disk utility can be used to format external drives as well. Upgrade the ram and storage of nearly any apple computer at. If youre formatting a drive for sharing with a pc, we recommend exfat. The macbook lineup only has thunderbolt 3 ports, meaning youll need usbc connectors in order to plug anything into your macbook pro. Best external hard drives for macs in 2020 techradar. Ive kept my itunes library on a usbattached drive for years now.
Mac or macbook doesnt recognize external drives, troubleshooting tips sometimes our macbooks, macbook pros, or macs dont recognize our external drives or external thumb drives. Its easy to move your files and settings from another mac or pc to your macbook air. How to install macos or os x on a new hard drive for your mac. If you have an old flash drive or one that was formatted to work with windows or another operating system, you can still format your flash drive to work on a mac. Apr 02, 2011 ive found the gaming performance of my new macbook air surprisingly strong, however, i dont have much hard drive space to waste on installing loads of games on the builtin flash drive, but i get the impression that the flash drive is a factor in the good performance of the games. No one wants to box up an expensive external hard drive or even a usb flash drive to transport 4gb worth of photos to aunt martha. Mar 08, 2020 sometimes our macbooks, macbook pros, or macs dont recognize our external drives or external thumb drives. External hard drives, thumb drives, usb drives, flash memory cards, and devices like ipod are examples of storage devices that you can connect to your mac. Jan 31, 2020 luckily sandisk offers 256gb ultra dual usbc drive, which contains plenty of storage while allowing you to use a newer macbook without dongles. How to connect your existing accessories to usbc on the.
Best external hard drive for macs, plus 256gb flash drives. Hello friend, following is the method the finder application on macs which enables you to transfer files on and off your computer. How to set up time machine on an external hard drive for macbook. Try using terminal to eject the disk, then shut down your mac, wait 2030 seconds and unplug the external drive from the mac, and power your mac back on.
Lacie mobile drive 4tb external hard drive usbc usb 3. Luckily sandisk offers 256gb ultra dual usbc drive, which contains plenty of storage while allowing you to use a newer macbook without dongles. The process of transferring files from your mac to an external drive is simple, but if you are not sure how to do it, then following these steps will get you through it. Booting from an external storage allows you to start up your mac in another version or copy of os x, troubleshoot certain issues and more. Macrumors attracts a broad audience of both consumers and professionals interested in the latest technologies and products. How to use seagate external hard drive on mac, 16 ways. Transfer the files from your mac to an external drive. I have a usb drive that i purchased and use with various pcs at work and school. Back up to an external hard drive or usb flash drive. Modern macbooks, like the newer macbook air and the macbook pro. If you think youll need an external drive mostly for bluray discs, most of them will also play dvds and cds but are not readablewritable.
Mac tips using a usb drive on a mac diy in 5 ep 99 youtube. How to check a macs free hard drive space macworld. Its a little large, but theres nothing like getting a free flash drive. How to copy and paste files from macbook air to an external. Extra tips before buying external drive for macbook pro. Go to open disk utility, which is located under applications in the finder menu. Follow through this page to get rid of this issue on your device without losing any data now. Volume format most manufacturers use the fat 32 or msdos fat volume format.
Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or instore pickup. To format a drive on a mac, youll need the builtin disk utility application. You can then double click any external drive that shows up on your desktop, in order to open it. How to move a mac photos library to external storage. The simplest method of backing up files is simply to copy the files and folders to an external hard drive, a usb flash drive, a cd, or a dvd. At first, it was strange because i assumed the transcend drive would be seen like my normal hard drive, but if you are waking from sleep there is a slight. Transferring data to or from these devices is quick and easy. Connect your external drive to your mac and wait for the icon of the pluggedin drive. How to access an external drive thats not recognized on a mac. If youre looking for as much space as you can get at a great value and reliability, the pny turbo 256gb usb 3. To format a flash drive on a mac, plug in the drive and open the applications folder, the utilities folder and then disk utility. If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive in fact, you should for better file organization, heres a stepbystep guide.
Most flash media come preformatted as fat32 these days. How to format or partition an external hard drive for mac. Aug 24, 2019 its a little large, but theres nothing like getting a free flash drive. If you are able to fix the hard drive or ssd in your mac or an external drive using. How to transfer files from a mac desktop to an external. Otherwise, you can skip this step and do it from the utilities page during the macos or os x installation. Use external storage devices with mac apple support. In my case, once the macbook air project was finished and the system was running fine, i took the old ssd and slid it into.
If you plan to use a flash drive with an iphone or ipad regularly, its worth buying a new mfi lightning flash drive that you can plug in directly. How to connect your existing accessories to usbc on the macbook pro and macbook air imore. If you want to use a different file system on your usb drive, youll need to format it. Jul 29, 2019 it helps if you know how to set your finder preferences.
We will go over how to use a usb drive, thumb drive, flash drive. Meanwhile, imacs, mac pros, mac minis, and the entrylevel macbook air all still. Lite storage expansion card for inch macbook air ts256gjdl. How to cope with just 128gb of ssd storage on your mac mini or macbook.
Save valuable space by moving your mac photos library to an external hard drive. Recommend external enclosure for pcie flash storage from nmp. Sep 14, 2015 today we get to talk about starting your mac up from external storage like optical media or an external usbbased hard drive or flash storage. Most modern mac laptops except for the macbook air have a dvdr drive, which makes it easy to send up to 8. Best external hard drive for macs, plus 256gb usb flash drives because apple is so stingy with storage you get just 128gb in the entrylevel macbook air and macbook pro having a good external hard drive for macs is important for offloading your large video and photo files. But if i attempt to copy a file to the drive on my mac, i get an icon telling me that i. I had no issues taking files from my external hard drive and transferring them to my new macbook air.
Jul 31, 2018 for example, if you install macos or microsoft windows on a usb drive, your mac can recognize that drive as a startup disk. Why cant i see my external hard drive icon on my desktop. How to troubleshoot issues with usb flash drives not showing up on a mac. If your external hard drive, flash drive, or sd card, etc. Starting up your mac from an external disk requires the following. Highlight your drive and click partition in disk utility. If you have a usb flash drive inserted in your mac, you can see it under the external in the disk utility. How to boot a mac from an external drive or alternate. How to copy and paste files from macbook air to an.
And likewise, if you aim at a cheap and capacious drive, it cant possibly be small in size you get the idea. Feb 02, 2015 recommend external enclosure for pcie flash storage from nmp. Experience the true speed of your mac with an owc ssd flash storage upgrade. Your flash drive should be listed in the left menu. However, i cannot download the photos i just added from the macbook air to my external hard drive.
Gaming from an external drive on a macbook air macrumors forums. Choose apple menu about this mac, click support, then click specifications. Transfer your data to your new macbook air apple support. Newer mac models with thunderbolt 3 usbc ports support these speeds. Back up to an external hard drive or usb flash drive if you use an external hard drive with your macbook, you can easily drag backup files to it from your internal hard drive. You can transfer information to your macbook air from an old computeror from a time machine backup on a usb storage deviceeither wirelessly, or with an ethernet cable and adapters. The best external hard drives for mac in 2020 pcmag. Again, formatting a drive will erase it completely, so make sure you have everything backed up that you want to keep. Feb 08, 2020 now your external drive has been formatted to be fully compatible with apple macos, and you can edit, read, and write files to it as you want. Drive speed is measured in revolutions per minute rpm, based on how fast the drive can spin. I just got a new mac and i cant see my external hard drive on my desktop like im used to seeing. I do not want to erase my external hard drive as it has many many files on it from computers past.