How to Reuse a Flash Drive on a Mac

If you attend any sort of large commercial event, you are probably going to be handed one or more of those little flash drives, thumb drives--or whatever you call them. They will probably contain advertising, but don't throw them away--these little gadgets are great external storage and a handy way to carry around files. Here's how to reformat one on your Mac.

Things You'll Need

• A USB port
• A Mac computer
• A flash drive

Instructions

1. Insert the drive in your Mac's USB port.

2. Find the flash drive in the Finder. Select all the contents and move them to the trash, then empty the trash.

3. Go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utilities and open Disk Utilities.

4. From the side menu in Disk Utilities, select the flash drive. Then select the Erase Tab. There's a format pulldown menu. Select MS-DOS (FAT) from the pulldown menu. The MS-DOS (FAT) option lets you use the flash drive on either Mac or Windows. This is particularly important if you carry files on the drive between home and school.

5. Click the Erase button. The drive will be erased and reformatted in just a few seconds.

   Close Disk Utilities and eject the flash drive.

Tips & Warnings

• If your flash drive was not commercially formatted with a disk image or some other hard-to-erase material, you should be able to reuse it merely by moving the contents to the trash.

• Most school kids are required to have flash drives among their school supplies these days.