Summary: Is your USB drive not showing up on Mac? Mac not recognizing USB device? Make pdf smaller mac. USB flash drive not working on Mac? In this article, we will help fix flash drive not showing up on Mac and Mac not recognizing USB drive.
Normally when you plug a USB flash drive into your Mac, you can find the connected USB device on Mac desktop or in Finder. However, sometimes, the USB flash drive won't be mounted correctly. And then the hard drive won't be showing up on Mac desktop or in Finder. How to fix it?
If no, then all you have to do is to tap on the 'Finder' icon from Dock of your Mac to appear it to the foreground. Once you are able to do it, follow the below steps to show the hard drive on Mac desktop: Go to the Menu bar, and then, move to 'Finder'. Next, click on the 'Preferences' option. Modifying Mac System Icons. Modifying system icons is generally not recommended, particularly for novice users. If you have any intention on changing a system icon or several of them, do back up the original.icns files first, and preferably, back up the entire Mac beforehand with Time Machine or your backup method of choice. Maybe you just picked up a new external hard drive, DVD or CD device, server, or even memory stick to use with your Mac. Being able to see these external devices and their contents is obviously important. And the most convenient place to access them is in the Finder Sidebar.
Now, let's dive into the solution.
How to fix USB flash drive not showing up on Mac?
There are seven solutions to fix USB flash drive not showing up on Mac or Mac not recognizing USB device:
Fix 1: Check USB cable, USB connection and USB ports.
Jump drives are directly plugged into USB ports on Mac while SD cards and NM cards need card readers before you access them through USB ports. That in-between connections, actually, could be the first cause for USB drive not showing up on Mac.
Then, how to check if the USB flash drive is recognized by Mac?
It's easy to confirm that your Mac has already recognized the USB device when it is not showing up in the Finder or the desktop. Simply click the Apple logo at the upper left of your Mac > About this Mac > System report > USB, and then all your connected USB devices will show up with detailed information as the picture below.
If the USB flash drive not detected by Mac due to hardware problems, you won't see the connected USB device under the USB Device Tree.
In case it's the USB port, cable, or card reader that stops your USB drives working on the Mac, you'd better try these things before you proceed with other solutions.
- Try to re-plug the USB flash drive into your Mac and see if it shows up.
- Sometimes, the Mac just is zoning out and fails to recognize the USB flash drive, or you didn't plug the USB drive into USB port in a right way at the first time. So, hopefully, the USB flash drive would show up after a second try.
- Try another USB port to connect this USB flash drive.
- Most computers, including PC and Mac, have multiple USB ports. And some USB ports may be deformed, lack of power, or dusty. In this case, simply try another USB port to connect this USB flash drive to your Mac.
- Reset USB ports on Mac to detect USB drive
- Resetting USB ports on Mac is another way to solve Mac not recognizing USB flash drive problem.
- Step 1: Disable SIP.
- Step 2: Download, install and launch iBoysoft Drive Manager on your Mac and select 'Remount USB storages' to reset USB ports.
- Try to connect the USB flash drive directly to your computer, not via USB-C adapter or USB hub.
- Some models of MacBook Pro and MacBook Air has only one USB 3.0 port, which causes the requirement of an additional USB adapter for more hubs. Inevitably, such transition could be unstable for power supply and data transferring, especially when you bought some cheap and low-quality adapter. Thus, try to connect the USB flash drive directly to USB port on your Mac this time.
- Try another USB cable or a newer card reader.
- Occasionally, you have used the same USB cable or SD card reader for years, which means the cable might broken or the card reader is out of date and some new features are not supported by the old card reader. As a result, the USB flash drive or the SD card is not showing up on Mac. Under this circumstance, simply get a new one and replace it.
- • Learn how to fix SD card reader not working on your Mac?
- Check the type of your USB flash drive by color.
- Usually, the USB 1.0 features a white plastic color, while USB 2.0 is black, and the USB 3.0 is blue.USB 3.0 is usually a blue USB inserts. But all USB ports on Mac computers that support USB 3 don't have blue inserts. In this case, if you connect a USB 2.0 flash device to USB 3.0 slot on Mac, the speed will only reach that of the USB 2.0. As a result, the data transfer rate of the thumb drive would be lowered and the thumb drive won't work optimally.
Fix 2: Change Finder preferences to show up USB flash drive on Mac desktop
https://fandimplimea1973.wixsite.com/softtribal/post/apk-games-online-play. Occasionally, your Mac has already detected the USB flash drive but you cannot find the connected USB device on Mac desktop. Thus, you should go to Finder > Preferences > General and make sure the 'External disks' option is checked. Then you'll see the connected USB flash drive showing up on Mac desktop.
Fix 3: Change Finder preferences to show up USB flash drive in Finder
Go to Finder > Preferences, switch to Sidebar tab, and check 'External disks' option under Locations.
You will see the connected USB flash drive in Finder's sidebar.
Fix 4: Reinstall or update USB driver
When your USB device is not detected by Mac, you should check if any USB driver updates are available, please do the following steps:
Step 1: Click on the Apple in the upper left corner of the screen.
Step 2: Select 'Software Update.'
Step 3: Any updates available will be listed and able to be downloaded or you will be told your software is up to date.
Fix 5: Repair USB flash drive with First Aid
If you can see USB flash drive but it is not mounting in Mac Disk Utility, in this case, you can try macOS built-in First Aid to repair the errors on USB flash drive.
Step 1: Launch Disk Utility from Utilities in Applications folder.
Step 2: Select the corrupted USB drive from the sidebar. https://sqqcsu.over-blog.com/2021/01/istatistica-4-0-1-download-free.html.
Step 3: Click First Aid at the top of the window, and then click Run, wait until the reparation process finishes.
Fix 6: Reformat USB flash drive
If USB flash drive not mounting on Mac is caused by disk corruption, the only solution under this circumstance is to reformat the USB drive. However, reformatting USB flash drive will erase all the files stored on it.
In order to avoid unwanted data loss, it's necessary to recover data from the unrecognized USB flash drive in advance.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is trustworthy and professional USB data recovery software that can recover data from unrecognized USB flash drives, unreadable USB flash drives, and unmountable USB flash drives.
4 steps to recover data from unrecognized USB flash drive: Markup app mac.
Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
You can't access your data when the USB flash drive is not showing up on Mac due to disk corruption. But with the assistance of iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac, you can easily access your files and get them off the drive. So simply download and launch this USB drive data recovery software on your Mac.
Step 2: Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
After making sure the USB drive is properly connected to your Mac, hopefully, the USB drive will show up when you launch this software. You can click on the gears icon at the upper left for preference setup, and then check all 'Scan by' options. This will make it easier to find your lost photos, documents, Word files, videos, etc. on the USB drive.
Step 3: Scan for lost data from the unrecognized USB flash drive.
After setting how the software scans for lost files, you can go ahead to put it into practice by selecting the not showing up USB flash drive and clicking on the 'Scan' button.
Step 4: Check files' condition before you recover them from the unrecognized USB flash drive.
Once the scan process is finished, you can filter the scanning results and find files you want to get back. To ensure those files are in good condition in the corrupted USB stick, you can click to preview them before you finally click the 'Recover' button.
No Drives Icon Mac Desktop
After you successfully recover data from the unrecognized USB flash drive, it is time to reformat USB drive.
4 steps to reformat the USB flash drive:
Step 1: Where can i download safari for mac. Go to Utilities and open Disk Utility.
Step 2: Select the unrecognized USB flash drive from Disk Utility sidebar.
Step 3: Click Erase at the top toolbar.
Step 4: Finish the necessary information (name, format, and scheme) to format the USB flash drive.
After the process finished, the USB flash drive will show up on Mac correctly.
Fix 7: Ask for help from a local specialist
If the USB flash drive is not showing up in Mac Disk Utility and System Information, it might be physically failed. If you don' have any important data, you can simply replace the damaged USB drive with a new one. But if you have anything important, you'd better send it to a local specialist for data recovery help.
Bonus tips for using USB flash drive
The USB flash drive, pen drive, jump drive, or whatever you call it, is convenient but also fragile to store data based on its special memory units and shape. Then, how can we protect it from corruption and not showing up on Mac?
You may need these tips:
- Don't put USB flash drives in the pockets of your pants of T-shirt, especially, when it's naked. This could keep your drive away from moisture from your body and dust on your clothes. More importantly, it can avoid accident break off when you sit down or bump into something.
- Don't unsafely eject the USB flash drive. Even though it's inevitable for portable drives to be plugged and unplugged frequently, you can make sure you eject it safely and properly every single time.
- Create a backup of your data. Although you have been taking good care of your USB flash drive, you should know that it has a limited life span. Therefore, to avoid unexpected data loss, you'd better do a regular backup of your files.
Most of the time, when you connect an external hard drive to your Mac's USB port, you soon see it mount on the desktop. Apple likes to ensure these are easy to find, so they also appear in the Finder in the left-hand column under Devices, since Mac's treat them the same way as another computer.
However, sometimes, an external hard drive doesn't show up. It's annoying, especially when you need to transfer something right then. And besides, there can be a risk that data on the external USB pen, hard, or flash drive is corrupt, which means you can't transfer what you need between devices at all.
Corrupt data can be one reason your Mac won't recognize an external drive, but there are other reasons too. Let's take a look why this is happening and how you can get an external drive to appear on your Mac and get recover data to access to your documents.
How to fix an external disk drive that won't show up on a Mac
Why an external disk drive is not showing up? There could be a few reasons why a USB flash drive isn't making an appearance.
Open an External Drive Not Showing on Mac
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Start with the basics:
- Check whether the drive is properly plugged in. It sounds obvious, but since this relies on a wire - either a USB cable or HDMI cable - if it's not connected properly then it won't appear on your desktop.
- Faulty cable. Assuming it's plugged in correctly, not wobbly or loose, the cable could be at fault. Try connecting the same device with a different cable.
- Damaged USB or flash drive port. It could be a hardware issue with the Mac. If you've got another port, try connecting the device to that one.
- Reboot your Mac. Sometimes, if a USB disk won't boot, the cause is macOS issue. Hopefully, some data damage that can be fixed by restarting. Choose the Apple menu > Restart. Or press and hold the power button and, when a dialog box appears, click the Restart or press R. Restarting your Mac essentially clears your macOS's memory and starts it up fresh.
- Incorrectly formatted drive. Not every external drive is optimized for Macs. It could be that you are trying to connect something only fit to interact with Windows devices. If you've got a PC or laptop, it's worth connecting and seeing if you can access the files through another device. The best way to look for an incorrectly formatted drive is to go to
Apple (in the top toolbar menu) > About This Mac > Storage.
See if the external drive shows up here. For more information, go to the same menu option, then select System Report. - Mac not formatted to display external drives on the desktop. It could be that your Mac already recognizes the device, but just isn't showing its icon on the desktop screen. Even if that is the case, the drive will still appear in the left-hand column of the Finder menu under Devices. You should be able to access your drive that way, and, in the Finder menu under Preferences > General, you can check External Drives to ensure that from now on it shows up on your desktop too.
- Reset NVRAM. To do this, shut down or restart your Mac, switch it back on and immediately press these four keys together for at least 20 seconds: Option, Command, P, and R. It should look as though your Mac has started again; if it has, release the keys when you hear the second startup chime. Hopefully, the hard drive has shown up now.
- Check Apple's Disk Utility to see if an external drive is showing up. Disk Utility is within System Preferences, or you can find it using Spotlight. If it is visible, then click the option to Mount, which should make it visible on the desktop and in the External Drives option in the Finder menu.
Unfortunately, if none of those options has worked and the external drive still isn't visible, then it could have crashed, or be well and truly broken. But there might still be a way you can recover the data on the external drive.
How to show connected devices in Finder
No Drives Icon Mac Os
- Go to the Finder menu and select Preferences (Cmd+comma).
- From General tab tick External disks to ensure that from now on it shows on the desktop.
In the Sidebar tab you can choose which folders and devices will be shown in the left-hand column of the Finder window.
How to add cloud storages to Finder
You can also mount cloud storage as local drive on your Mac. By connecting Google Drive, Dropbox, or Amazon to your computer, you get more space for securely accessing and sharing files. For your ease, add cloud drives to Finder with CloudMounter app, so that you keep them close at hand. You can read detailed instructions on managing cloud storage as local drives here.
Repair the failed external drives with First Aid
If your drive is having problems, you can try to fix them yourself with First Aid and therefore get access to your files. First Aid tool will check the disk for errors and then attempt a repair as needed. It helps to verify and repair a range of issues related to startup HD and external drive problems. If you are able to fix the hard drive or SSD in your Mac (or an external drive) using Disk Utility you will hopefully be able to recover your files.
Magic number 2 7 10 – a better calculator. To run Fist Aid on an external hard drive:
- Open Disk Utility. You can searching for it using Spotlight Search or via Finder > Application > Utility
- Check on your external hard drive, click the First Aid tab and select Run to start running diagnostics.
If First Aid successful in fixing errors, the external drive should be available to mount. If the utility unable to repair issues, your drive truly is broken or formatted using a file system that the Mac cannot read - in this way we suggest you follow the next steps to recover data from a damaged disk drive.
How to recover data from a crashed drive
Thankfully, there is an app for that. Disk Drill is the world's premier data recovery software for Mac OS X. Powerful enough to retrieve long-lost, mistakenly deleted files from Macs, external hard drives and USB drives and camera cards.
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An easy way to recover lost files on an external hard drive
Providing you already have Disk Drill Pro version, which you can get automatically by downloading from Setapp:
- Connect your drive to the Mac.
- Quit all other applications on the Mac, especially those that may be trying to access the external drive (e.g. iPhoto, Words)
- Launch Disk Drill.
- Click on the external drive that you are trying to recover files from. If it has partitions, you will see all of them. If, however, you still don't see any volume to the external drive then you may need to try some of the steps above again or read the Disk Drill Scanning FAQs.
- To avoid the external drive being accessed during the recovery process, click Extras next to the drive or drive partition or file, then select Remount Volume As Read Only. A padlock will appear, protecting the drive during the process.
- Now click Rebuild (or Recover) next to the file(s) you are trying to recover. Once the scan is finished - it may take some time if the files are large - a list of files will appeal.
- Next, click Mount Found Items as Disk button on the bottom-left below the scan results.
- Disk Drill 'strongly suggest saving the files to a different drive than the one you are trying to recover files from. Saving to the same drive substantially lowers your chances of recovery.'
- A drive icon will appear, which once you double click will give you the option to open the files as you would do before they were lost. Drag them to another location, such as your desktop or a folder on your Mac.
- Open the files to ensure they have been recovered properly and safely eject the external drive.
Disk Drill does have other ways to recover lost files but assuming there aren't complications, this method is the most effective. Disk Drill Pro recovery app is available from Setapp, along with dozens of Mac apps that will make your life easier. Never have to worry about a crashed or corrupted external drive again.
A few more tips on getting your files back
- Macs and third-party apps that look after Macs, such as Disk Drill and iStat Menus come with a S.M.A.R.T. (also known as Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) status monitor. If a SMART check reports errors, then it could mean the hard drive is at risk of failing completely. Within Disk Utility and Disk Drill, there are several solutions for this: Repair Disk Permissions and Repair Disk. If neither work, it's recommended that you backup all of the data from the disk, erase, then run a SMART check again. The external hard drive should show up as Verified.
- Partitions can get lost within hard drives, temporarily hiding all of the information contained within. Disk Drill can help to identify and restore this information.
- Within Disk Drill, you can restore data when a hard drive is damaged or add formatting, which is also something Disk Utility can help with.
- CleanMyMac, another useful app available from Setapp, can help you identify external hard drive errors and repair them. It is an essential tool worth trying when you're having external hard drive difficulties.
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Alternative ways to recover data from an external hard drive
Reset the System Management Controller (SMC) if your Mac shuts down when you plug in an external hard drive. Then use a different port to connect the external hard drive. If you've got a battery that you can't remove:
- Shut down and unplug the power adapter
- Press Shift-Control-Option and the power button at the same time. Do this for 10 seconds
- Release all keys
- Plug the power adapter back in and switch your Mac back on
For Macs with removable batteries, you need to switch them off, remove the battery, then press and hold the power button for 5 seconds. After that, put the battery back in, plug in the power adapter and switch the power on again.
What's your file format? One reason your Mac isn't recognizing the hard drive is the file format. Windows uses NTFS file formats, while Macs, up until the introduction of Sierra, have used HFS+. Now, Apple has introduced the Apple File System (APFS) for newer operating systems. It is possible to format a hard drive so it can be read on Mac and Windows computers, providing you format using exFAT. However, if you're having problems accessing the files and the issue is due to formatting, you will need to connect it to a device it can be read on, and then format the files correctly for the computer you are going to use it on next.
How to make Ext2/Ext3 drives readable on Mac
The common issue is Ext2- and Ext3-formatted drives are not readable on macOS. There are two ways to access such external drives on your Mac – via Linux OS or FUSE system. The easiest would be installing Linux to a secondary drive or virtual machine.
If you go with Linux installation, dual boot your Mac with Linux on another drive and use FAT32 as a transfer intermediary. If you don't have a drive to install Linux to, use virtual machine as an interface for it. Transferring can be done the same way – with FAT32, or via network.
Another option for reading Ext2/Ext3 disks is mounting disk with Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE). Basically, it works as an extra interface enabling file system access via specially installed modules. Here's how to mount drives with FUSE:
- Install FUSE for macOS or MacFUSE as well as fuse-ext2 module.
- Use the following Terminal command to enable Disk Utility's debug menu and see all partitions: defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1
- Attach your Ext2/Ext3 drive and locate the device name via Disk Utility.
- In your user account, create a folder to be used as a mount point.
- Use the following Terminal command to mount the drive as read-only: fuse-ext2 /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/mountpoint
- For write support, use the command: fuse-ext2 -o force /dev/disk2s2 /Volumes/mountpoint
No Drives Icon Macbook
And that's not the only case where Terminal helps you access external drive.
Employ the handy all-powerful Terminal, which always comes forward with solutions for difficult problems. Especially if System Information does recognize the USB or hard drive, but continues to hide it from you, disconnect the drive and try to find it using the Terminal, which you can find in Applications > Utilities.
- Once in the Terminal, type in the command diskutil list
- A list with information about volumes and drives should appear
- Look for a section labelled /dev/disk_ (external, physical)
- Make a note of the whole line after the word disk
- Now put the following command into the Terminal diskutil info disk followed by the number or digits assigned to that disk
- Now you should see detailed information about the drive, therefore confirming that your Mac can and does recognize it
- Eject using the Terminal by entering the command diskutil eject disk followed by the number or digits assigned to that disk
- Physically remove the disk from you Mac
- Plug it back in and your Mac should recognize it
Console is also reliable when it comes to solving tricky problems, although it isn't always that easy to use. You can find Console under Applications > Utilities > Console. Console shows if an external drive or any error is detected under the Errors and Faults tab. If no errors show up, then the problem is not caused by the device.
To sum up, there are lots of potential solutions for a Mac not reading an external hard drive. If we were to pick one, Disk Drill seems to be the most well-rounded, offering plenty of customizations and power in an easy-to-use interface. Disk Drill Pro recovery app is available via Setapp, along with 150+ Mac apps that strive to make your life much much easier. At the very least, you'll never have to worry about a crashed or corrupted external drive ever again.
Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.
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