How to Delete a Drive Partition on PC or Mac
Method 1 of 2:
Using a PC
- Right-click on the Windows Start menu
- Click Disk Management. It's in the pop-up menu that appears when you right-click the Windows Start menu. This opens the Disk Management app.
- Right-click on the drive you want to delete. This displays a pop-up menu with options for the drive.
- Click Delete Volume. It's in the pop-up menu that appears when you right-click on a drive in the Disk Management app. This deletes the drive. The new free space will be unallocated.[1]
- Warning: This will permanetly delete all the data on the partition. Make sure you backup any files you want to save to another drive before you delete the partition.
- Note: You cannot delete a drive that has your Windows installation on it.
- Right-click the main drive. This is the drive (usually C:) that the original partition was split from.
- Click Extend drive. It's in the pop-up menu that appears when you right-click on a drive in Disk Management. This opens the Extend Volume Wizard.
- Alternatively, you can click Format Drive to reformat the unallocated free space as another partition.
- Click Next. It's in the lower-right corner of the Extend Volume Wizard.
- Click Next again. This confirms that you want to add the entirety of the unallocated space to the main drive.
- Click Finish. This adds the unallocated space back into your main drive. Your partition is now deleted.[2][3]
Method 2 of 2:
Using a Mac
- Click the magnifying glass icon
- Type Disk Utility in the spotlight search bar. This displays a list of apps that match your search text.
- Click Disk Utility.app. It's at the top of the list of search results. It's next to an icon that resembles a hard drive with a stethoscope. This opens the Disk Utility app.
- Click the drive you want to delete. The drives are listed in the sidebar to the left of the Disk Utility app.
- Click Erase. It's at the top of the Disk Utility app. This displays a pop-up.
- Click Erase in the pop-up. This verifies that you want to erase the drive and erases it.
- Warning: This will permanetly delete all the data on the partition. Make sure you backup any files you want to save to another drive before you delete the partition.
- Click Done. Once your computer is done erasing the drive, click Done to close the pop-up window. Your partition has been erased. If you still want to use the partition, no further steps are needed. If you want to remove the partition, continue to the next step.
- Click the Partition tab. It's the second tab at the top of the Disk Utility app. This displays a pie chart with your partitions.
- Click the partition you want to remove in the pie chart. The selected partition will turn blue.
- Click -. It's the icon with the minus (-) sign below the pie chart. This removes the partition from the pie chart, allocating the free space to the main drive.
- Click Apply. It's in the lower-right corner of the Disk Utility app. This displays a confirmation pop-up.
- Click Partition. This applies the partition and reallocates the newly erased partition to the main drive.
- Click Done. Once the partition process is finished, click Done to close progress bar. Your partition has been erased.[4]
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