Home information

How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac

This wikiHow teaches you how to remove all of the files from a flash drive in Windows and macOS. Plug the flash drive into your PC. You can connect your flash drive to any working USB port on your computer.

Table of Contents
Method 1 of 2:

Windows

  1. Plug the flash drive into your PC. You can connect your flash drive to any working USB port on your computer.
  2. Picture 1 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    Double-click This PC. It's the computer icon on your desktop.
    1. If you don't see this icon, press ⊞ Win+E to open the File Explorer, then double-click This PC in the left sidebar.
  3. Picture 2 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    Right-click your flash drive. It's under the 'Devices and drives' header in the right panel. A drop-down menu will appear.
  4. Picture 3 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    Click Format…. The Format window will appear.
  5. Picture 4 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    Click Start. It's at the bottom of the window. A confirmation message will appear, letting you know that all data on the drive will be erased.
  6. Picture 5 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    Click OK. Windows will now remove all of the data from your flash drive. You'll see a message that says 'Format Complete' once the drive is cleared.
  7. Picture 6 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    Click OK. This closes the window.
Method 2 of 2:

macOS

  1. Plug the flash drive into your Mac. You can connect your flash drive to any working USB port on your computer.
  2. Picture 7 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    Open Finder
    Picture 8 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    . It's on the Dock.
  3. Picture 9 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    Open the Applications folder. Click Applications in the left sidebar, or double-click Applications in the right panel.
  4. Picture 10 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    Double-click the Utilities folder.
  5. Picture 11 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    Double-click Disk Utility.
  6. Picture 12 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    Select your flash drive. It's in the left panel.[1]
  7. Picture 13 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    Click the Erase tab. It's at the top of the right panel.
  8. Picture 14 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    Select a format. The default formatting option is OS X Extended (Journaled) should work for most people.[2]
    1. If you want to erase all of the files and use the drive on a Windows PC, select MS-DOS (Fat) instead.
  9. Picture 15 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    Click Erase…. It's at the bottom-right corner of the window. A confirmation message will appear.[3]
  10. Picture 16 of How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac
    Click Erase. This removes all of the files from your flash drive.

You've just finished reading the article "How to Clear a Flash Drive on PC or Mac" edited by the TipsMake team. You can save how-to-clear-a-flash-drive-on-pc-or-mac.pdf to your computer here to read later or print it out. We hope this article has provided you with many useful tech tips and tricks. You can search for similar articles on tips and guides. Thank you for reading and for following us regularly.

« PREV How to Create a Desktop Shortcut
NEXT » How to Save Videos on Telegram on PC or Mac
Read more