In case the USB doesn’t show up on the desktop, you might wonder where the drive pops ups and what happened to your data. Worry not, for there are a couple of other paths through which you can access the drive on your MacBook. However, its limited file system support and an unsuitable setting configuration can influence your mac not to recognize the USB drive. Also, directly plugging out the drive before ejecting it can lead it to get corrupted and possibly, unresponsive. This article is prepared to guide you through all the ways you can find your USB drive on a mac. We will also take you through some important steps in case your drive doesn’t show up on the next plug ins.
How to Find USB Drive on Mac
The connected USB drive can be accessed either through the desktop, Finder or via the disk utility tool as well. Since talking about all of them is frankly impossible in a single paragraph, we have associated an independent sub-heading with each of them. This way, you can easily understand where the USB drive is located and how to open it.
Access the Drive Through the Desktop
Probably, the easiest way to find the connected USB drive is via the desktop. This is because, once you connect your USB drive, it appears on the desktop along with an icon resembling an external drive. Through this, you can open the drive to view the files within it, copy and paste them to your computer and also delete the unnecessary documents. A right-click on the drive shows plenty more options for you to try out, including the one to rename your drive, among others.
Access the Drive via the Finder
If your drive doesn’t show up on the desktop screen, you can go to the Finder and view it from the sidebar. If you have a previous experience with a Windows PC, you might know that there File Explorer is responsible for managing all the files and folders inside your computer. So, on a Mac, the Finder has the same functionality as the Windows file explorer. That is, via the Finder, you can locate, access, modify and alter all files and folders within the macOS. For this, simply plug in your USB drive and then, open the Finder. On the left panel, you’ll notice that there’s the name of your USB drive below the Locations menu. You can then access the drive by clicking on it. To copy files to and fro between the USB and your computer, you can simply drag and drop the required documents to the preferred destination. Dropping the files into the Trash will delete the particular document from your USB drive.
Enable External Disks
However, if none of the aforementioned methods help you access your USB drive, chances are that the external disks are disabled on the Finder preferences. If it is so, you’ll have to enable the disk access permissions to view, open, and modify your disks as your requirement. So, to do this,
Use Disk Utility
Knowing how to use the Disk Utility tool is important in managing your USB drive and its health. The Disk Utility tool cannot be used to open your USB drive to view its files. However, this tool offers much more than that. In scenarios where the USB drive is not recognized by your computer or when it cannot be accessed, the Disk utility’s first aid feature can ‘heal’ the drive to restore its health and more. It checks for any corruptions that might be present within the disk and aims to fix them if possible. So, for this, simply, Similarly, the Partition feature allows you to manage your disk partitions, Erase clears everything written on the disk, and the Restore option first makes an exact copy of the files in the disk, then erases the disk to fill it with the copy of the files it previously made.
Change the USB File Format
If your system still fails to open and run the USB drive, then maybe, its file format is not recognized by the macOS. If you usually switch between a Mac, Windows, or Linux, you may have set the USB file format to the one that’s supported on either operating system except for the macOS. That is, your Mac only supports USB with either the APFS (Apple File System), exFAT, Mac OS Extended, or the MS-DOS file system. Anything other than these, such as NTFS and ext3 is not supported by your computer. So, in such a case, you should change the USB file format to be able to access the drive. Keep in mind that changing the file format of your USB drive erases everything on the drive; hence, it is recommended to back up any important documents before you begin the formatting process. And once this is done,
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How to Use USB on Mac?
Once you connect and access the USB drive on the mac, you can view, modify and alter its files. You can copy files between your computer and the drive either by dragging and dropping the required file in the destination folder, or you can also right-click on the file and select the copy option before pasting it in the desired place. The copy and paste action on Mac shall create a duplicate file to paste into the destination folder. The original file shall remain intact in the original location. Deleting files from the USB drive is also a simple case of dragging and dropping the file into the trash bin. Either that or you can also right-click on the file and select the option to move it to the bin.
How to Safely Eject My USB Drive?
If in case you never eject your USB drive before unplugging it from the computer, there is a high risk for your files and your USB to get corrupted. So to prevent negligent data loss, you can set a habit of safely ejecting your USB drive. To do this, This will allow you to safely eject your USB drive and prevent it from further crashes and corruption.
How to Recover Data From USB?
In order to recover considered lost data, you have to resort to using third-party data recovery software to recover the data from your corrupted USB drive. We personally never recommend using third-party applications; however, that being said, there are some applications that work wonders on your corrupted drive by recovering the lost files and potentially fixing your USB drive as well. Upon research, we found out that Disk Drill, CCC6 are some of the best software available right now, among others.
