
The easiest way to format the drive to FAT32 or ExFAT is by using macOS's built-in Disk Utility for FAT32, or both macOS and Windows' built-in tools, Disk Utility or Disk Management respectively for exFAT.

For more information about what these limitations are please see Answer ID 20778: FAT32 File System and Partition Size Limits for Windows & macOS. This is a file system limitation that affects both macOS's and Window's, and the only workaround is to format the drive to exFAT.

FAT32 has several limitations, including a 4 GB per-file limit. Most WD Drives come formatted in the NTFS (Windows) or HFS+ (macOS) format.įor a hard drive to be able to be read from and written to on both a Windows and macOS computer, it must be formatted to ExFAT or FAT32 file format. This is useful if a drive is being used under both Operating System (OS) to move files between the two environments. Answer ID 50277: Format an External Drive as exFat using Windows for use on Windows and macOS Guided AssistĪnswer ID 50276: Format an External Drive as exFat using macOS for use on macOS and Windows Guided AssistĪ Western Digital external hard drive can be used on both Windows and macOS.
