You might need to erase/clean and format a storage device due to some reason. In macOS, there is a Disk Utility app that you can use to perform erase, format, and repairing like tasks easily.
Time needed: 10 minutes
In this guide, you will learn how to erase a storage device and then reformat it again so you can use it again.
- Back up your data
Everything will be erased from the storage device when you perform the steps given below. So, If you have any important data on your storage device that you are going to erase then make sure you transfer it to another device.
Advertisement - Run Disk Utility
You need to run the Disk Utility app on your Mac and it depends on what type of disk or volume you want to erase.
Erasing Start-up disk? If you want to erase a startup disk, then you need to start macOS in Recovery and then open Disk Utility from the recovery window.
Erasing another type of storage disk? Go to the macOS Applications folder and then the Utilities folder, here you will see Disk Utility. You can search for Disk Utility in the macOS search. - View all disk and volumes
When you open the Disk Utility, click View and then choose View All Devices option.
- Erase disk
Now you can see all the disk in the sidebar. Select the disk/volume that you want to erase and click the Erase button.
See also: Format a drive to use on both Windows and Mac - Select partition scheme
Choose GUID Partition Map from the Scheme menu.
- Choose file system format
From the Format menu, select the file system format.
- Give a name
Type a name for the disk.
- Secure erase option (optional)
Click the Security Options and then choose how many times you want to repeat writing over the data while erasing.
You can only perform secure erase on the disk if this button is available for your storage device in the Disk Utility. You can ‘t perform secure ease on some type of storage devices in the disk utility. - Erase and format
Finally, just click the Erase and then Done to complete the process.
If you having any problem erasing or formatting your disk then please don’t hesitate to leave you question below and we will be happy to answer it and try to solve your issue, Thanks.