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Why Can't I Move Files From My Mac To A FAT32 External Hard Drive?

Why are macs so difficult to work with? I am simply trying to move all files to an external drive that is formatted in FAT32. I cannot do it, it just spins. Why can I NOT MOVE FILES? This ONLY happens on mac devices. All of them, these are the worst things to ever have in a business enviroment as they are terrible for anything other than watching tv. Seriously all I am tasked with is moving all files to an external then wiping the mac to factory default. EXPLAIN why this is so difficult? Why can I not jsut drag everything to the drive?

Best Answered by

Vain Rowe

Answered on Tuesday, December 3, 2024

For the failure to move files from a Mac to a FAT32 external hard drive, the causes can be multiple. Yet let's put the reasons aside for this moment and move to the solutions directly:

Solution 1: You should check if your hard drive is enough to hold all the files you want to move. If not, change to a hard drive with a bigger space for file storage.

Solution 2: Check if your Mac computer has the read & write permission by right-clicking the drive and selecting Get Info. If not, click the padlock on the window bottom > type in your user account password for permission change > change the permission to Read & Write.

Solution 3: Format the FAT32 drive to HFS, HFS+, or APFS file system since the FAT32 file system drive has a 4GB file size limitation. If you need to use this drive on both Mac and Windows, an NTFS file system is recommended. You just need to install iBoysoft NTFS for Mac, then the NTFS drive will be mounted in read & write automatically on your macOS computer.