
Press the Enter key and your external drive will be erased completely.Next, type: diskutil eraseDisk JHFS+ (diskname diskidentifier).Now you’ll see a list of disks there, target yours through the disk identifier.Open it and enter this line: diskutil list.You can also try the Terminal app, though it’s a command-line tool that requires you to be a bit geeky.

If for any reason Disk Utility fails to wipe your drive. Wipe External Hard Drive on Mac via Terminal (Command Line) It’s because SSDs don’t have to go through this process due to the way it manages files. Note: If your drive is an SSD, you won’t be able to click “Security Options” as this option will be grayed out. Here you can specify how securely you want to wipe the drive, move to Most Secure if you are paranoid because this option overwrites more times to the disk space, though the process tends to be slower.Next, click the Security Options button at the bottom.Choose a file system to which you want to format your external drive. Next navigate to Applications and select Utilities, then select Disk Utility.Select the disk or volume in the list on the left panel.Click on the Erase tab (next to “First Aid”).On your Mac, go to Applications > Utilities >Disk Utility.Then follow the step by step tutorial below: Make sure the device can be detected by the machine. From the utilities window, select Disk Utility and click Continue. Erase External Hard Drive on Mac via Disk Utilityįirst off, connect your external hard drive to your Mac. Once you use any of the methods below, the drive will be completely erased and all data will be removed permanently. Warning: Before you proceed, make sure you’ve already backed up all your important data. The guide should work with all types of external disks, including hard disk drive (HDD), solid-state drive ( SSD) or a flash drive.

If you want to start up again from the disk you erased, select Reinstall macOS in the utilities window, then click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions to reinstall macOS.So you just got a new external hard drive, and wanted to sell or donate your old one? Or your current external drive just got over-cluttered, and you want to completely wipe it out to regain all the storage space?Įither way, in this article we are going to show you two different ways to securely erase an external drive on a Mac computer (iMac, MacBook, etc.).Quit Disk Utility to return to the utilities window.After the erase is done, select any other internal volumes in the sidebar, then click the delete volume (–) button in the toolbar to delete that volume.ĭuring this step, disregard any internal volume named Macintosh HD or Macintosh HD - Data, as well as any volumes in the External and Disk Images sections of the sidebar.If you don't see this button, click Erase instead.
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