conversion from exfat to MacOS

I switched to Mac from windows. I had to format my hard drives for ExFat to copy my photos, but I really want to switch to MacOS to be able to use Time Machine. I have about 3 TB of photos and data which I must preserve. They are on an external HD. Is there a way to convert?

Posted on Jan 26, 2023 10:05 AM

Similar questions

external drive formatting Mac to PC From the reading I've already done it seems like I should be able to format an external HD as exFAT and then be able to use that to transfer data to a PC. I've done that, and Mac won't let me drag and drop files from the Mac to the exFAT formatted external drive. My mac's about to die I suppose anyway as it greys out the screen for a few seconds when coming out of sleep (it has an only 3 yo HD in it). I just want to get all my photos and music off the Mac. I'm using Mojave on an old 2012 Mac mini. Yes, I am going to buy a new setup, but I do need to get that data off for whatever computer I get. Thanks all!
886 12
setting up a new external harddrive to transfer photos between old 2009 macbook pro and windows pc Hi Apple community! here’s my overall goal: 1) back up my data with the 3-2-1 backup strategy, and 2) upgrade the hardware on my old Mac. So, I am upgrading hardware (which I already have, ready to be installed) on my old mid-2009 15-in 2.53GHz MacBook Pro which is currently running El Cap 10.11.6. I want to improve its performance and eek out a few more years from it. However, before I mess with the hardware, I have 17,000+ photos that need to be backed up (yeah yeah I know, better late than never). I have iCloud uploading them in the background so that they get on the cloud, but I also want 1 or 2 copies on a hard drive just in case. I bought a Silicon Power Armor A60 5TB USB 3.2 portable hard drive to move all of my photos onto so that I can also access them from my much newer Lenovo pc. The portable HD came formatted in NTFS, which I quickly discovered is only readable on Mac. I’ve read all the how-tos and watched at least 25 different YouTube videos to try to troubleshoot, but am still running into issues and my max will not recognize the PHD to write files onto it! so far I have tried: 1) format disk to exFAT on windows (Mac could not mount it) 2) tried reformatting disk to exFAT on Mac (ran into an error about not enough space) 3) pulled up cmd on windows and added an efi partition (via YouTube instructions, I am NOT fluent in cmd) 4) went back to max and supposedly “successfully” reformatted the disk to exFAT, however the max STILL cannot recognize or mount it!! What am I missing?!?! (Before you ask, yes I have already tried unplugging it, restarting the computer, and plugging the PHD back in. Same results.) thanks so much for any help!
598 4
External Hard Drive to External Hard Drive formatting Photos on external HD formatted as MAC OS Journaled. Can I copy these photos to a second external hard drive formatted as APFS or need to stick with MAC OS Journaled?
504 2

3 replies

Jan 26, 2023 10:20 AM in response to Daffa4most

Daffa4most wrote:

Yes, but how can I ever get the photos onto a Mac format drive? I can't copy them all to the Mac internal HD because it is only 500 GB.

Can you ever copy the data on an ExFAT drive to a Mac drive?

Yes you can copy data from an ExFat drive to a Mac formatted drive. get another external drive, format the second external drive for Mac, connect both external drives and copy the data from one to the other. Then format the original now empty external drive for Mac.

Jan 26, 2023 10:08 AM in response to Daffa4most

You'll have to move the data off the drive then connect the drive to your Mac and format it for Time Machine.

Daffa4most Author

Level 1

4 points

Jan 26, 2023 10:15 AM in response to BobTheFisherman

Yes, but how can I ever get the photos onto a Mac format drive? I can't copy them all to the Mac internal HD because it is only 500 GB.

Can you ever copy the data on an ExFAT drive to a Mac drive?

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

conversion from exfat to MacOS