MS-DOS FAT32 for Mac mini photo backup drive?

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MS-DOS FAT32 for Mac mini photo backup drive?

When I erase data on an older ext. harddrive on Disk Utility should I chose MS DOS FAT 32? I WANT TO USE IT AS A PHOTO BACKUP ON THE MAC MINI

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Thank you!

Mac mini, macOS 15.4

Posted on Mar 19, 2026 4:23 AM

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Answer 1

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woodmeister50

Level 7

21,833 points

Mar 19, 2026 5:11 AM in response to sieghilde

Are you ever going to use this with a Windows machine? If so, FAT32 is not a good choice of large external drives. You should format as EX-FAT which was developed to support very large drives.

If you are never going to use the drive on a windows machines you have two choices: HFS+ or APFS. Use HFS+ if you ever need to use the drive with macOS 10.12 or older otherwise format the drive as APFS.

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Answer 2

den.thed

Level 10

98,292 points

Mar 19, 2026 7:18 AM in response to sieghilde

Use "GUID Partition Map / APFS" if you are going to Backup or Move your iPhotos and Music Libraries to the external drive.

Use Master Boot Record / MS-DOS if you want to Share random Photos and Music between your Mac and a Windows PC.

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Answer 3

Mar 19, 2026 5:05 AM in response to sieghilde

I depends. Photos.app libraries support only APFS or MacOS Extended (GUID, case insensitive) -formatted drives.

Non-Mac formats like exFAT, MS-DOS FAT, NTFS, cloud storage, Time Machine volumes are NOT supported and might very well corrupt the library.

That applies to Photos libraries. Loose individual images in Finder folders etc outside such libraries can be stored on non-Mac formatted drives

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