What format should I use for external drives on MacBook Pro?

Apple historically has supported every format they ever used on their drives, with one exception:

The single-sided 800K floppy format that did NOT include hierarchical folders is the only one that has been discontinued.

The last device that could possibly read such drives was beige in color, and was discontinued about the turn of the century. At the time it was discontinued, it was NOT writing that format for its normal drives. Only the original Macintosh and possibly the "Fat Mac" (with 128K of RAM) used that format by design.

The restriction on Time machine is that Macs after MacOS 15 Catalina used APFS format drives preferentially (but not exclusively, and continued to support MacOS Extended, as All Macs do today). The downside of using that more efficient APFS format is they could not be restored to a drive BEFORE APFS was invented, because those older MacOS did not understand APFS format.

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<<Yes, it seems Apple are trying to force customers to use that format on drives that are their own personal property, without it seems any thought as to the ethics of that. >>

You have always been free to choose your backup drive format. NOTHING has been removed. Apple did not take anything away, and has not behaved un-ethically. Instead, they have done back-flips to continue to support and maintain your choices.

jshire wrote:

I also have an older Macbook so I tend to think any new drives should still be formatted in Mac OS Journaled so they can be used on various laptops.

How old? APFS support was added with High Sierra. I have a 2011 MacBook Pro that's still running and it can read APFS. Any older computers are long since dead.

Also, I'm just formatting a new SSD drive & have noticed that the option to use Mac OS Journaled (encrypted) isn't there anymore

You can still create Mac OS Journaled volumes. You just can't encrypt them anymore. And it looks like Apple got rid of that several years ago. So if you're just now finding out, then you probably don't need it. And if you still have any older computers that can't read APFS, then they still could created encrypted HFS.

When I then tried to erase it so it could be formatted in Mac OS Journaled that option isn't there at all now, only AFPS. What's going on? It seems bizarre that Apple can do this, in effect restricting how people decide to use their external drives.

You can still erase the disk. It's just that, by default, Apple's Disk Utility tool only shows volumes. Go to the View menu and select "Show All Devices". Then you will be able to select the disk and change it to HFS if you want.

The old HFS format was really a beast. And then Apple added Core Storage on top of that to support both Fusion Drives and encryption. Now Apple wants to get rid of that mess.

If you really need to support 10.12 or earlier, then format those drives on the devices that need those older formats.

jshire wrote:

there is no longer an option to erase & reformat to MOS-J since it was formatted to AFPS.

I don't know what the big deal here is. If you're still living in 2005, then live there! It was a great year. Things were so much simpler back then.

But there is most definitely an option to erase and reformat in HFS+.

Suppose you have an APFS drive that looks like this in Disk Utility:

First, you have to show all devices:

Now you have a slightly different view. You can click on the top-level device.

Then click the "Erase" button. Pick "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)"

And there you go!

I don't want to store that kind of stuff on this drive either, but protecting external drives is common sense.

Well now you're at an impasse. You cannot encrypt this format anymore. If you try, it will be converted to APFS and your old PowerPC Mac will not read it. Sorry.

It looks to me like it has just been removed form the Menus as a simplification of the interface.

Format your drive to MacOS Extended (journaled). Then before you add substantial data to it, encrypt it by using Filevault. (You CAN encrypt it with lots of data on it, it just takes a LOT longer)

Protect data on your Mac with FileVault - Apple Support

I believe that current versions of macOS really want to use APFS on startup drives, and for Time Machine backup drives.

Time Machine got a pretty major rewrite to be able to save backups on APFS drives. For a while, you could only back up APFS volumes to HFS+-formatted Time Machine drives. Then one might have chosen HFS+ for a Time Machine drive out of an abundance of caution. Now, in Sequoia,

Types of disks you can use with Time Machine on Mac - Apple Support

"APFS or APFS Encrypted disks are the preferred format for a Time Machine backup disk."

although

"Time Machine still supports backup on Mac OS Extended (Journaled) … disks."

That said, HFS+ might be the best format t use for a mechanical hard drive that is neither a startup drive nor a Time Machine destination. My understanding is that HFS+ goes to greater lengths to try t avoid file fragmentation (which drags down hard drive performance) while APFS has more features and may have more clever tricks when it comes to write management.

You will need to completely Erase the drive, and format anew as MacOS Extended (journaled).

That choice may not be available if there is data on any of the container-disks. The drive will resist Erasure until the Container disks have each been Erased. Then the entire drive can be Erased.

I have been recently been messing up my Mac Pro drives (with multiple drive bays) doing some experiments, so I have determined, experimentally, that this works.

jshire wrote:

Firstly Apple states that the AFPS format can't be read on older macs. I haven't tried, just going on what the AFPS information says.

That is correct. APFS support was added to macOS 10.13 "High Sierra" in 2017. So if you are running any operating system older than that, then you can't use APFS. You can run 10.13 on computers as old as 2009 and 2010. See macOS High Sierra - Technical Specifications - Apple Support

But to be honest, computers that old really aren't going to be running for that much longer. The internal electrical components simply wear out over time. If you have something really critical running on a 2008 or earlier model, you are in deep, deep trouble. I can assure you that APFS is the least of your problems.

Again, the only options showing now are all to reformat to other AFPS formats. If I could see anything else I would mention it but that is the only option showing.

And again, if you want advanced options to show, you have to enable them. Apple knows how long those 2007 Macs are going to last, so they want to discourage people from using them. They've put a lot of time and effort into developing APFS and that's what they want people to use.

Originally, you asked a straightforward question - "What format should I use for external drives on MacBook Pro?"

There is a simple, straightforward answer - APFS

You were concerned that "at some point there will be compatibility issues with Mac OS Journaled." You are correct to be concerned. That most definitely will happen - guaranteed.

And finally, you said, "I also have an older Macbook so I tend to think any new drives should still be formatted in Mac OS Journaled so they can be used on various laptops."

How old is this "older MacBook"? If it is 2008 or older, why on earth would you use it instead of your new M1 computer? But regardless, if you have absolutely critical things that must be compatible with that old MacBook, then fine. Use that old MacBook to format your external drives. If you continue to purchase new computers and/or apply updates, then, eventually, the new ones won't be able to use those external hard drives. If the older MacBook is still running at that point, you'll have to make a hard choice.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

Apple historically has supported every format they ever used on their drives, with one exception:

The single-sided 800K floppy format that did NOT include hierarchical folders is the only one that has been discontinued.

Not quite.

Apple removed all support – even read-only support – for the original HFS (no "+") as of Catalina. From what I have read in these forums, that causes problems for people with HFS data CDs and even hybrid data CDs that were burned on old Macs. macOS now reportedly rejects CDs that have HFS ("no +") filesystems even if those CDs also have a "PC" filesystem that macOS could theoretically read.

Grant Bennet-Alder wrote:

To encrypt any existing drive, control click the Item in the Finder sidebar and Finder will kick off the encryption process.

I think you're confusing the OP. Yes, you can definitely format a new HFS+ drive.

Well, you and I can format a new HFS+ drive. The OP can't find the option to show the device, but I digress.

But if you attempt to encrypt said HFS+ drive, it will be converted to APFS. You can't even do it on the command line. That Core Storage ship has sailed.

For whatever it's worth, it may still be possible to create an encrypted HFS+-format disk image.

You could then store the .DMG file on an unencrypted HFS+-format drive.

I would not recommend this for storing large files that you change frequently, but if you have a few sensitive files that you need to protect, this may be an option.

Also, the drive CAN be reverted to any other format, it is just far more complicated:

Each of the individual Volumes inside the APFS Container must be erased FIRST, THEN the entire drive can be Erased.