To make a USB stick work on Mac and PC: format

by Mudassar Ali Tourist and Writer!

A standard USB stick only works on one operating system. A very annoying feature for people who own both a Mac and a Windows computer. Fortunately, you can format the USB stick yourself easily and quickly. When you have done this, you can use the stick on both Mac and Windows. The same process can be applied to external hard drives.

USB stick
Although there is more and more information on the cloud, stored on servers and stored via the internet, people still prefer to use a USB stick when they want to transfer data from one computer to another. The prices have therefore fallen, thanks to technological advances sharply. You can buy a USB stick of 8 gigabytes for about 10 dollars. Unfortunately, you often have to reformat them first, so they work on both Windows and Mac. The fact that a standard USB stick does not just work on two operating systems is because the operating systems read code differently. It is an unpleasant feature when you want to share files with friends, or when you are printing something in a copy center. There are many detailed typical courses available on the internet; we will discuss a simple formation informatique guide below, have a look:

Warning!
Use a blank USB; all files will be erased during this process. Make sure that there are no critical files on your USB that you do not have a copy of. After formatting, there are some significant drawbacks
Files can be saved up to 4 GB in size.
The USB stick is less efficient; there will be less space for files.
You can not adjust privacy settings of the documents.

Formatting a USB stick on a Mac
Make sure your USB stick is empty
Go to programs
Go to tools
Go to disk utility
Choose your USB stick on the left
Go to Clear
Choose as structure MS-DOS (FAT)
Click on Clear
Confirm

Other remarks
The same step-by-step plan can be applied to a hard drive. You can also rename your USB stick or hard drive as you go through this process. You do this by entering the name under 'Name.'

Formatting a USB stick on a Windows computer
Make sure your USB stick is empty
Go to the Explorer menu
Choose your USB stick on the left
Right-click and click format
Under 'Filesystem' choose exFAT
Click Start
Confirm

Other remarks
The same step-by-step plan can be applied to a hard drive. You can also rename your USB stick or hard drive as you go through this process. You do this by filling in something under 'Volume label.'

Ready to use on both systems
Once your USB stick has been formatted to the other language (for Mac: MS-DOS FAT or Windows: exFAT), you can read it by both systems. Now you can easily transfer files from a Mac to a Windows and vice versa. Due to some drawbacks, it is not immediately recommended to format external hard drives. They stay better in their language because otherwise, they lose some efficiency (less can be saved). So think twice before you execute this process.

USB stick does not work anymore
It is possible that your USB stick does not work on both platforms (Mac and Windows) anymore. There will then be a message that the USB stick cannot be read. This may be due to the unsafe removal of your USB stick. To safely remove your USB stick on Windows, click on 'Safely remove hardware' at the bottom left of the screen. On a Mac drag the icon to the trash can (rest assured, the data is not deleted) so that the stick is safely removed. If your USB stick stops working for this reason, you may be able to fix it by formatting it. If there are significant documents on your USB stick, you can try to save them with specialized software.