
Change “diskname” to the new name you want for the disk, and replace “diskidentifier” to the Disk Identifier obtained from Disk Utility. Diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ diskname diskidentifier In the command above, change “JHFS+” to “ HFS+” if you want a volume that is not journalled. Open Terminal, either by Spotlight or by opening the app from “Applications -> Utilities.” 2.Įnter the following command into Terminal. To format an external disk using Terminal, simply follow the steps below: 1. It is a little longer but often comes in useful when Disk Utility refuses to perform your desired action for some reason. Formatting a Disk Using Terminal This method is aimed towards power users who are fond of using Terminal to do work on their Mac. Once you have everything selected, simply click on Erase, and you’ll have a newly formatted disk. Once you click on it, you’ll have the option to rename the disk, select the format you want for the disk (more on that later), and select the disk scheme. You’ll see the option to “Erase” the disk at the center – top of the window. Select the disk you want to format from the left-side pane. You can either do this by searching for it from Spotlight or by navigating to “Applications -> Utilities” and opening Disk Utility. They are used for listing the contents of a directory and moving from one directory to another, just like Finder is used for browsing folders. The most frequent commands you will use are ls (list) and cd (change directory).
#Mac terminal commands external drive mac#
Terminal in OS X Getting disk usage information on a Mac is often gathered by selecting a file, directory, or hard drive and hitting Command-I. To format a disk using Apple’s Disk Utility, simply follow the steps below. Formatting a Disk Using Disk Utility Formatting a disk using Apple’s Disk Utility is the easiest and most straight-forward method of the two. We’ll be detailing both of these methods below. You can format a drive in OS X using two applications: Disk Utility and Terminal. Formatting an external drive on your Mac is quite easy, though it isn’t as evident and obvious as it is on a PC. Either way, you’ll want to format your drive accordingly. Most external drives ship in formats that are universally recognised amongst nearly all operating systems (FAT, I’m looking at you), but there may be times where you might want to completely wipe a drive and/or set it up to be compatible with Apple’s Mac lineup only.
