May 22, 2017  The very first partition also cannot be deleted as it contains the Partition Scheme, but this partition is not editable/visible in Disk Utility anyway, so don’t worry about it. If you want to change that one, you must reformat the entire disk to a new Partition Scheme, which wipes all partitions on the disk.

• Mac Partition Format
• Format Internal Hard Drive Mac
• Format Scheme Mac

• May 24, 2017  The following partition schemes are at your disposal: GUID Partition Map—Select this option to use this disk with Intel-based Macs only. Apple Partition Map—This compatibility option should be used if the disk will be used with PowerPC-based Mac computers using macOS version 10.4 or earlier.
• Jun 13, 2017  Partition Your Mac's Hard Drive With Disk Utility. Or later, then the guide 'Partition a Mac's Drive Using Disk Utility (OS X El Capitan or later)', should be used. One or more hard drives to partition. Use the dropdown menu under the Volume Scheme heading to select the number of partitions you wish to create on the selected hard.

With the advent of OS X El Capitan, Apple made a few changes to how Disk Utility works. The app has a new streamlined user interface, but it's missing a few features that used to be part of Disk Utility before OS X 10.11 came along.

It may be a bit disappointing to find that Disk Utility is missing some basic features, but don’t worry too much. In most cases, the missing features are no longer needed, due to the way OS X and macOS have changed over time.

In this guide, we're going to take a look at formatting Mac’s drives or disks. We think sometime in the near future, Disk Utility will have a name change; after all, the term disc, which refers to rotating magnetic media, will likely not be the primary storage method for Macs pretty soon. But until then, we're going to use the term disc in a much broader definition, one that includes any storage media a Mac can use. This includes hard drives, CDs, DVDs, SSDs, USB flash drives, and Blade flash drives.

Although the changes to Disk Utility occurred with OS X El Capitan, these changes and the new way to work with the Disk Utility app will remain applicable to all newer versions of the Mac OS going forward, which includes macOS Sierra and macOS Mojave.

Format a Mac's Drive Using Disk Utility

Disk Utility supports many different functions, all involving one or more disks, volumes, or partitions. We're going to use Disk Utility to format a drive, regardless of the type. It doesn’t matter if it's an internal or external, or if it’s a hard drive or an SSD.

The formatting process will format the selected drive by creating a partition map, and apply an appropriate file system that your Mac can work with to the drive.

While you can format a drive to contain multiple file systems, volumes, and partitions, our example will be for a run-of-the-mill drive, with a single partition formatted with the standard OS X Extended (Journaled) file system.

Warning

The process of formatting the drive will erase all data currently stored on the device. Make sure you have a current backup if you intend to keep any data already present on the drive.

Steps to Format a Drive With Disk Utility

The process of formatting a drive is often confused with erasing a volume. The difference is that formatting affects an entire drive, including any volumes and partitions that have been created on it, while erasing a volume affects just that volume, and doesn't destroy partition information.

That being said, the version of Disk Utility included with OS X El Capitan and later actually doesn't use the word format; instead, it refers to both the formatting of a drive and the erasing of a volume with the same name: Erase. So, while we're going to be formatting a drive, we'll use Disk Utility's Erase command.

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Format a Drive With Disk Utility

1. Launch Disk Utility, located in /Applications/Utilities.
2. Tip: Disk Utility is a handy app to have easily available, so we recommend adding it to the Dock.
3. From the left-hand pane, which contains a list of drives and volumes connected to your Mac, select the drive you wish to format. (Drives are the top-level devices, with volumes appearing indented and below the drives. Drives also have a disclosure triangle next to them that can be used to reveal or hide the volume information.)
4. The selected drive’s information will be displayed, including a partition map, capacity, and S.M.A.R.T. status.
5. Click the Erase button at the top of the Disk Utility window, or select Erase from the Edit menu.
6. A panel will drop down, warning you that erasing the selected drive will destroy all data on the drive. It will also allow you to name the new volume you're about to create. Select the format type and partition map scheme to use (see below).
7. In the Erase panel, enter the new name for the volume you're about to create.
8. In the Erase panel, use the drop-down Format field to select from the following:
   1. OS X Extended (Journaled)
   2. OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
   3. OS X Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)
   4. OS X Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted)
   5. MS-DOS (FAT)
   6. ExFat
9. OS X Extended (Journaled) is the default Mac file system, and the most common choice. The others are used in specific circumstances that we won’t go into in this basic guide.
10. In the Erase panel, use the drop-down Scheme field to select the partition map type:
    1. GUID Partition Map
    2. Master Boot Record
    3. Apple Partition Map
11. GUID Partition Map is the default selection and will work for all Macs using Intel processors. The other two choices are for specific needs that, once again, we won’t be going into at this time. Make your selection.
12. In the Erase panel, after you have made all of your selections, click the Erase button.
13. Disk Utility will erase and format the selected drive, resulting in a single volume being created and mounted on your Mac’s desktop.
14. Click the Done button.

That's all there is to the basics of formatting a drive using Disk Utility. Remember, the process outlined here creates a single volume using all available space on the selected drive.

Also be aware that the Format and Scheme types listed in the Erase option of Disk Utility will have changes as time goes on.

So, you just bought an external hard drive or a portable SSD and wanted to use it on your Mac. But somehow, macOS doesn’t allow you to write data to the drive.

That’s all because it’s been initialized with Windows NT File System (NTFS), which is primarily for PCs. Apple Mac machines support a different file system.

In this post, I’m going to show you how to format your external drive for a Mac compatible file system i.e. Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Just follow this easy step-by-step guide and you’re all set.

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. The operation will erase all data and your files will be gone for good. You could use a recovery program like Data Rescue to retrieve them, but the odds of recovery vary.

Pro tip: If your external drive has a large volume, like mine – a 2TB Seagate Expansion. I highly recommend you also create multiple partitions. I’ll also show you how to do that below.

Most External Hard Drives Are Initiated with NTFS

During the last several years, I’ve used several removable drives, including a 500GB WD My Passport, 32GB Lexar flash drive, and a few others.

Three weeks ago, I bought a brand new 2TB Seagate Expansion to backup my MacBook Pro before I updated to the latest macOS, 10.13 High Sierra (also see those High Sierra issues I encountered).

When I connected the Seagate to my Mac, the drive icon showed up like this.

When I opened it, the default content was all there. Since I wanted to use it on Mac, I clicked the blue logo with the text “Start_Here-Mac”.

It brought me to a webpage on Seagate’s site, where it clearly indicated the drive was initially set up to work with a Windows PC. If I wanted to use it with Mac OS or Time Machine backup (which is my intent), I’ll need to format the drive for my Mac.

I then right-clicked the external drive icon on Mac desktop > Get Info. It showed this format:

Format: Windows NT File System (NTFS)

What is NTFS? I’m not going to explain here; you can read more on Wikipedia. The problem is that on macOS, you can’t work with files saved on an NTFS drive unless you use a paid app Paragon NTFS for Mac.

How to Format an External Drive to Work with Mac (from NTFS to Mac OS Extended)?

Note: The tutorial and screenshots below are based on macOS Sierra 10.12.5. They might be different if your Mac has a different version.

Step 1: Open Disk Utility.

The quickest way to do this is a simple Spotlight search (click the search icon on the upper right corner), or go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility.

Step 2: Highlight your external drive and click “Erase”.

Make sure your drive is connected. It should show up on the left panel under “External”. Select that disk and click the “Erase” button, the one highlighted in red in the screenshot below.

Step 3: Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” in Format.

A new window will pop up asking which file system you’d like to format the external drive to. By default, it’s the Windows NT File System (NTFS). Select the one shown below.

Pro tip: If you want to use the external drive for both Mac and PC, you can also select “ExFAT”. Learn more about the differences between these file systems from this thread.

By the way, you can also rename your external drive.

Step 4: Wait until the erasing process is complete.

For me, it took less than a minute to format my 2TB Seagate Expansion.

You can also check to see if the format was successful. Right-click on the icon for your external drive on Mac desktop, then select “Get Info”. Under “Format”, you should see text like this:

Congratulations! 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.

How to Partition an External Hard Drive on Mac

If you want to create multiple partitions on your external hard drive (in fact, you should for better file organization), here’s a step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Highlight your drive and click “Partition” in Disk Utility.

Open the Disk Utility app and highlight your external hard drive. Make sure you select the disk icon right under “External”. If you select the one below it, the Partition option will be greyed out and become unclickable.

Step 2: Add partitions and allocate volume for each one.

After clicking “Partition”, you’ll see this window. Located on the left is a big blue circle with the name of your external drive together with its volume size. What you need to do next is click the add “+” button to increase the number of partitions on your external disk. Then allocate the desired volume to each partition. You can do that by clicking the small white circle and dragging it around.

After that, you can rename each partition and define a file system for it.

Mac Partition Format

Step 3: Confirm your operation.

Once you hit “Apply”, a new window pops up asking for your confirmation. Take a few seconds to read the text description to make sure it reflects what you intend to do, then click the “Partition” button to continue.

Step 4: Wait until it says “Operation successful.”

Format Internal Hard Drive Mac

To check whether the operation is really successful, go to your Mac desktop. You should see multiple disk icons show up. I chose to create two partitions on my Seagate Expansion — one for backup, the other for personal use. You can find more info in this post: How to Backup Mac to an External Hard Drive.

Format Scheme Mac

That wraps up this tutorial article. I hope you find it helpful. As always, let me know if you have any issues during the formatting or partitioning process.