[It’s Simple] How To Format A Seagate Hard Drive For Mac

Looking for simple straight forward help on how to format your Seagate hard drive for your Mac?

Because you just want to get your Mac’s backup done.

Or you need your drive to free up space on your Mac. So, then download that mass of photos because you don’t want to pay for any more storage in the cloud.

Read on for your simple, easy to follow instructions.

Overview: How To Format A Seagate Hard Drive For Mac

Want a high level view?

Here’s what you’re going to do when you format your Seagate External hard drive for your Mac.

1. Log in. Plug your Seagate drive into your Mac.

2. Spotlight search Disk Utility. Press return.

3. Pick your drive under External on the left.

4. Click on Erase at the top.

5. Type in a name. Pick your Format from the menu.

6. Pick GUID Partition Map for Scheme.

7. Click Erase bottom Right to Format.

Just Before You Format Your Seagate For Mac

Wait, just one moment.

Before you format on your MacBook or iMac. Ask yourself.

Before you format or reformat your Seagate drive on your MacBook or iMac. Ask yourself.

Are there any important files on there you want?

Because formatting means you’ll lose those files on the drive after you’ve formatted it. And you’ll be seeking the services of a Data Recovery Company. Or Data Recovery software to get that lost data back.

An example of the kind of files you may have on your drive are files put on there by Seagate.

These let you to register your Seagate storage device for warranty. And download some of Seagate Technology’s software tools.

If you know there are files on your Seagate hard disk drive. Or Seagate external SSD (Solid State Drive) then copy them somewhere safe first. Then you can go ahead and format.

Simple And Easy Steps How To Format Seagate External Hard Drive For Mac

1. Log Into Your Mac. And Plug In Your Drive.

Your Seagate portable hard drive unless it’s one of Seagate’s desktop drives. Takes its juice, its power from your Mac, along its USB cable.

And that means you’ll need enough battery power in your MacBook Pro or Air for your drive.

Formatting a desktop Seagate external drive? Then plug in its power cable to power it up.

Depending on the model of drive you may need an adaptor cable to plug into your Mac’s USB port.

Not sure what you might need? Then go over to my document here that walks you through the different generations of Macs. Their USB ports and the type of USB adaptor you need to look for. Connect External Hard Drive To Mac.

When you’re plugged in and powered up. Your Mac will show the Seagate’s drive icon on your desktop.

If for some reason you can’t see it. Take a look at your Finder window Settings (Mac OS Ventura). In earlier Mac OS releases, it’s called Preferences.

Open a finder window. And go to your Settings or Finder Preferences.

Make sure the box show ‘External Disks’ on your desktop is checked.

You’ll find it under the General heading.

2. Spotlight Search Disk Utility.

You’ve free disk management software on your Mac. It’s part of your Mac OS X (operating system). And that software will format or reformat your Seagate drive for you. The name of the software is Disk Utility.

You find it by doing a Spotlight search.

Click on the Spotlight icon at the top of your Mac’s desktop screen.

Then type in ‘Disk Utility’ and press the return key.

Double click on Disk Utility to start up the program.

3. Pick Your Seagate Drive Under External.

Once Disk Utility has started up, you’ll see its pop up window.

On the left hand side of the pop up window you’ll see a list.

The list has all your Mac’s attached drives on it.

You’ll find your drive listed under ‘External’.

Seagate Internal External Drive List Circled in Yellow

Click on your Seagate drive in the list. The yellow arrow on the photo below shows you where.

Select Seagate Expansion at the Right Level — Select Seagate external hard drive at the Right Level

It’s important that you pick your USB drive at the right level. Or your formatting may not work.

You may need to expand the list to see the levels. You do that by clicking on the down arrow to the left of the drive icon on the list.

No List? Nothing under external? You’ll need to change your view.

Pick view from the top menu on your Mac’s desktop.

From the drop down menu pick ‘Show All Devices’.

That will show the levels you need. The drive and the volume.

4. Click On Erase At The Top.

At the top of your Disk Utility pop up window you’ll find the Erase button. Click on that.

Only click on the Erase button after you’ve clicked on your Seagate drive at the top level.

Now you’re taken to the next pop up window. There you’ll set up how you want to format your external hard disk for your Mac.

5. Name Your Seagate Hard Drive And Pick Your Format

Now you put in the details for your drive’s format.

Choose and put in a name on the menu where it says Name.

After you’ve formatted your Seagate external hard drive. Your Mac will show this name on your desktop under the Seagate drive’s icon.

Next pick your file format.

You have a few options here.

Formatting Seagate For Mac Only?

Then pick Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS (Apple File System).

You pick these formats when you want to copy and paste your files.

Or drag and drop your files to your Seagate hard disk drive.

What To Know To Format Seagate Hard Drive For Mac APFS?

The new Apple File System (APFS) was originally for a SSD (Solid State Drive)

Apple Inc designed it to take advantage of the speed of those drives.

But it runs on hard drives as well.

And as of Mac OS X Big Sur. Time Machine now supports a backup to an APFS file format.

But not for older versions of Mac OS. If you want your drive as a Seagate backup drive for Time Machine on MacOS Catalina. Or earlier then format as Mac OS Extended.

If you find that APFS doesn’t come up as an option. Then it’s likely that your Seagate portable is in an NTFS format. Format your drive as Mac OS Extended first. The next time you format you’ll see the APFS format option come up.

Formatting To Use Between A Mac Computer And A Windows PC

Then pick ExFAT.

You can drag and drop your files. Copy and paste your files.

Between a Mac and a Windows computer.

But you can’t use an ExFAT formatted storage device for a Time Machine backup.

Don’t choose FAT32 unless you have to. It’s an old MSDOS file system. FAT32 is less robust and has file size restrictions. You wouldn’t choose it unless you were using your external disk for a device that will only talk to FAT32.

Pick your Format option.

You choose from a list that you open up using the up/down arrows at the end of the Format field.

6. Pick GUID Partition Map For Scheme

The next option you choose when formatting your drive for Mac is Scheme.

Pick GUID Partition Map.

This is the scheme your Mac likes to use. It doesn’t matter if you’ve picked Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or an ExFAT format or APFS. You Pick GUID Partition Map.