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Clean up a Thumb Drive

How to reformat a USB ‘thumb’ drive.

Clean up a Thumb Drive
Mac Tip #350, 06 August 2008

Emtec 1Gb Thumb Drive

Many people use thumb drives — those tiny ‘sticks’ you plug into a USB port — for storing backups of important documents, and they’re great for that purpose: quick, easy, convenient. Copy files to the drive, drag files from the drive, add, delete — it all takes but a moment.

When things go wrong

The Finder shows several files on my No Name thumb drive

Until, maybe, something goes wrong, as a friend found recently when one file claimed to be corrupted, and the daily backups wouldn’t complete. This problem isn’t unique to thumb drives, by the way — it can happen any time to any storage medium.

In the screenshot my No Name thumb drive has a bunch of files on it.

How to reformat a thumb drive

In my friend’s case we did some troubleshooting and then decided to reformat the thumb drive. Here’s how to do that.

Disk Utility displays a list of drives

Start up Disk Utility. You should find it in the Applications — Utilities folder. The Disk Utility window opens and displays a list of disks in the left-hand column.

Plug in the thumb drive you’d like to reformat. It should also show up in the list of drives.

In the screenshot you can see a list of the internal hard drive and DVD drive on my Mac. My No Name thumb drive is listed, and I’ve selected it in the list. Click on the thumbnail images in this post to see larger versions.

Warning: erasing destroys data

Warning about erasing a disk with Disk Utility

Click on the thumb drive in the list to select it.

Now take great care in the next step. When you reformat a drive it completely erases everything that’s on it.

Make sure you select the correct disk and also make sure you have copies of any files on the thumb drive that you wish to keep.

After selecting the thumb drive in the list click on the Erase tab on the right hand side of the window.

Choose a Volume Format from the pop-up — try Mac OS extended (Journaled), and if you wish, give the thumb drive disk a name.

Double check that you will be erasing the correct disk and then click the Erase… button. An alert appears reminding you that all data will be erased and asking you to confirm that you wish to erase the drive. Click Erase to wipe everything or Cancel to abandon what you’re doing.

My screenshot shows that I’ve selected a thumb drive called 964 MB Ut165 USB2FlashStorage Media and am about to click the Erase button on the alert.

My Thumb Drive now has a name

After a few moments the disk is wiped clean. When I look at the disk in the Finder I see that no files remain. In my screenshot you can see the thumb drive now shows up in the left-hand column of Disk utility with the name I assigned it.

Security Options…

Secure Erase Options in Disk Utility

If you wish, click the Security Options… button before you erase the thumb drive. Choose from the different methods for erasing, depending on your purpose.

If all you want to do is wipe a drive you’ve been using so you can start fresh choose Don’t Erase Data, or Zero Out Data.

If you’re cleaning up a drive someone else gave you, to be sure there’s nothing nasty on it, or to give the drive to someone else, choose a more secure option such as 7-Pass or 5-Pass Erase. The more secure the option you choose the longer it will take to erase the drive.

By the way: if you want to reformat a memory card to be used in a cellphone or camera first check the manual and help files for that device. You may be best to reformat the card in the camera or cellphone itself so it uses the correct formatting options.

Tagged as: disk utility, erase, format, thumb drive

See more from: Leopard,Mac Tips,Peripherals

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* 17 comments… read them below and tell us what you think.

Dude 1 8 August 2008 at 22:39:27

I hate Macs. So bloody difficult to clean up/delete files from my thumb drive. For some reason, when I delete stuff it actually uses up space on the drive!

Miraz Jordan 2 9 August 2008 at 16:42:21

When you delete the files do you just put them in the Trash? If you don’t *empty* the Trash then the files are still on the drive using up space.

Bubbowrap 3 20 September 2008 at 17:31:10

…

Miraz, I love you. I’ve been erasing the whole drive because of that problem, often being forced to redrag things into the thumbdrive once I’ve finished deleting what I didn’t want anymore.

Thank you!

Miraz Jordan 4 20 September 2008 at 17:38:41

Thanks bubbowrap. It’s great to know my Tips have been useful. :-)

CL 5 4 December 2008 at 07:23:06

Thank you. It worked perfectly. This problem has been bugging me for months. THANKS!!!

Neena 6 18 December 2008 at 12:03:17

OMG you are a life saver!!!!

Gina 7 25 December 2008 at 18:33:18

Thank you so much for this. I still have no idea what files were stuck on my brand new drive, but this got them off after fiddling with it for WAY too long.

Miraz Jordan 8 25 December 2008 at 18:41:39

CL, Neena, Gina: thanks for the feedback guys. It’s so good to know the Tip has been useful.

Lys 9 8 January 2009 at 08:48:32

THANK YOU!! Whenever I connected my thumbdrive to my photo printer it kept finding 320 photos (that weren’t ever visible to me but that I used to have stored on the drive) and now they’re GONE!!

Miraz Jordan 10 8 January 2009 at 09:36:13

Hey Lys, that must have been so annoying. I’m glad my Tip was helpful.

Cheers,

Miraz

carolina 11 26 September 2009 at 04:53:34

oh wow!!! thank you sooo much! ive been trying to do this forever and i couldnt! you just saved my life!!!

Jay 12 2 December 2009 at 16:53:38

This post totally just saved my butt from a big fat ‘F’ in my design class. My thumbdrive was ‘full’ even though I had deleted everything, which meant I couldn’t transfer my huge photoshop project to class. Three quick clicks after reading this post and I was back in business. THANK YOU!

Miraz Jordan 13 2 December 2009 at 16:56:59

Hi Jay,

I just LOVE hearing that the MacTips have been useful. I’m so glad this one was able to really make a difference for you!

Good luck with the project.

Cheers,

Miraz

GaryF 14 31 August 2010 at 11:28:21

Hi Miraz
I reformatted a thumb drive in disk utility so the kids could put MP3 files on it to play in the car. The first format I used MAC OS Extended – the player wouldn’t recognise the files. I tried again using MS-DOS (FAT) format, same deal, the files weren’t recognised and the player reads unsupported device. Can you tell me what I’m doing wrong?
Thanx

Miraz Jordan 15 31 August 2010 at 20:29:30: Try reformatting it in the player, or check the player’s manual to find out what format it requires.

cj 16 5 March 2010 at 06:53:35

This probe was “DRIVE ing” me crazy! thanks a bunch!

Space Dragon 17 16 April 2010 at 13:20:55

this was really helpful! thanks for the good post

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