The reason why MS-DOS (FAT32) is greyed out on your Mac could be that the option is unavailable for the USB drive you are formatting. The maximum possible size for a file on a FAT32 volume is 4 GB. What is the largest file FAT32 can handle?
HOW TO FORMAT FAT32 ON MAC SDCARD SERIES
The reason why the Windows UI has a 32GB limit on the formatting of FAT32 volumes is because retired Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer “said so.” The confession comes “in the latest of a series of anecdotes hosted on his YouTube channel Dave’s Garage,” reports The Register. Why is FAT32 limited to 4GB?īecause FAT32 stores 32-bit file sizes and the maximum you can store in 32 bits is 2^32-1 ~= 4.29e9. Employed on Windows PCs prior to the more advanced NTFS file system, the FAT32 format is widely used for USB drives, flash memory cards and external hard drives for compatibility between all platforms. ( File Allocation Table32) The 32-bit version of the FAT file system. Hit “START,” and that’s all there is to it.į. The Fat32 format should be the default option. Right-click on the SD card and select “Format.” Under the “Devices and Drives” section, choose the SD card you want to format. Go to the “Start” menu and choose “File Explorer.” In the pop-up window, specify partition label and select FAT32 from the given list.Ĭlick “Apply” to execute the pending operations. Right-click the SD card and select “Format Partition”.
Plug the 64GB SD card to a card reader and insert it into your computer. Please back up important files before you start.
You can also format the drive in a variety of other formats depending on your needs. You can have a drive format to FAT32 on an Apple Mac computer using Apple’s Disk Utility, which comes with macOS. … Formatting will delete all the data in your device.Ĭan MS-DOS read FAT32? Yes, MS-DOS 6.22 can’t recognise FAT32 configured drives.įAT32 is a system used by Microsoft Windows for organizing files on disks and drives. Formatting the flash drive as exFAT or NTFS will resolve this issue.
HOW TO FORMAT FAT32 ON MAC SDCARD FREE
… There are various free third-party Windows applications that can be used to format SanDisk memory cards in the FAT32 file system for use in devices that do not support the exFAT file system.Īccordingly, Can FAT32 handle large files?įiles larger than 4GB can NOT be stored on a FAT32 volume. It’s the closest thing we have to a universal file system format, which is why most flash drives are formatted this way right out of the box.įormatting SanDisk memory card products in FAT32 format using third-party Windows applications. … Virtually all cameras and videocameras support FAT32, too.
MS-DOS (FAT) – This is Disk Utility’s name for the FAT32 filesystem.