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Why Video Cut Short When Exporting to External Flash Drive?

I need to export a video from iMovie on my Mac to a USB flash drive (64GB used and 32GB available). The video is 4.81GB and about 32 minutes long. After transferring, I found that it cut off the last few minutes of the video. Although it shows 32:06 minutes long, actually 29 minutes. I've tried dragging the video to both USB flash drives, but it says "The item can't be copied because it is too large for the volume's format." Why?

Best Answered by

Connie Yang

Answered on Monday, April 29, 2024

Because the format of your Flash drive is FAT32. The maximum size for a file on FAT32 drives or volumes is 4GB, no matter how large the capacity it has.

To enable your USB drive to store files over the size of 4GB, you can reformat it to exFAT or Mac OS Extended. The maximum file size of exFAT is 16EB while Mac OS Extended is 8EB.

The choice I recommend you choose is exFAT as it is compatible both on Windows & macOS. Mac OS Extended is only workable on macOS.

You can move files on your flash drive to your Mac first because formatting a drive will erase all data on it; then reformat your external drive on your Mac.

  1. Open Launchpad > Other > Disk Utility.
  2. Select the flash drive on the left sidebar.
  3. Click Erase.
  4. Type a name, choose exFAT, and click Erase.